Michael, Aaron, Magnet, Phill, Dan, suzatonic, thank you so much for your replies! I'm really grateful that you have taken time out of your day to give me back my motivation to continue. It's just too easy to fall back into the habit of continually comparing oneself with others, but the saying that comparison is the thief of joy really is true. When I feel demotivated the next time I will come back to reading your replies. For now, I'll try to follow your practical advice. Thanks again!

Hi Michael, I would like to suggest a slightly different approach. Embrace the wonkiness. Draw because you enjoy the sensation of moving the pencil/pen/crayon across the page. The challenge and usual source of frustration with drawing is that you are trying to make something look "right" and as a result, unless you nail it, it looks "wrong". But, since you are just beginning, it isn't reasonable to expect it to be right. It is just where it is today. Think about it as practicing the skills of making lines and seeing, rather than trying to make the drawing look correct. Maybe do an exercise from the class, and then do a little sketch that just feels good. Maybe check out some urban sketchers and see how they are able to create expressive sketches without having to be totally accurate. It may help take some of the pressure off. I'd also check out Danny Gregory. He is an artist who started drawing in his 40s and shows the power of sticking with it and how improvement builds through quantity. I also recommend Elizabeth Gilbert's book Big Magic. She makes the point very well that we make art because of the joy it brings. The world is not going to end because your drawing isn't accurate. It doesn't really matter. You just make a drawing because you enjoy making the drawing and seeing how it goes—what it looks like this time. And then make another one to see what that one looks like. And another and another. You'll gradually increase your accuracy. In the meantime, you've filled a sketchbook with fun, kinda wonky drawings. Experiment, keep it fun, try different mediums. Another thing you can do is choose a goal for that drawing, like making the lines fluid or using different line weights or getting contrast in values. Then evaluate how well you were able to achieve that specific goal rather than evaluating the overall correctness of the drawing. For me, the ultimate goal is expression, not accuracy. Accuracy is just one skill to learn along the way. Lastly, keep in mind that the lessons in the class have a couple of assignments each, but that is not enough for you to really master that skill before moving on. The class just moves on because it has to cover a certain number of topics. Each skill requires a lot of practice. So, for example, draw a snail with CSI, and a camel and some boots, and then do 10-15 more drawings with CSI and then go on to the next lesson. It sounds like you have worked through much of the course already. Revisit some of the lessons you enjoyed and do more of those. But most importantly, you aren't drawing to win a prize or be the best, you are drawing to enjoy drawing, so cut yourself some slack, divest yourself of the outcome and enjoy the process of learning a new skill. Hope that helps. Suzi

Hello Michael! All these replies say things that make sense. Listen to them. They are insightful! I see this with a lot of beginners, and it breaks my heart that so many are so discouraged with their initial steps into this wonderful thing we call art. It boils down to the fact that drawing, especially realistic/representational, is freaking hard! But being a beginner is just that. You're only beginning! Don't give up on it before you've even had a chance. My 2 cents, as someone who was also a beginner at one point. Not speaking of aptitude, but every artist, no matter how amazing they are now, started just like you. They picked up a pencil for the first time. Their first drawings were not good! Go look at some of Stan's videos where he shows his beginner drawings and then look at his art now. It took him 10+ years to make outstanding art. You only picked up your pencil four months ago! It takes years of dedication to reach above the beginner level. It takes many more years to progress out of the intermediate stage. 10-15 years for some people to become professional/advanced level artists. This is a game of time. Think of it like learning a language. Would you expect to be fluent in another language within four months of starting, having never tried to learn another language before? Of course not. Art is no different. Yes, immersion and thorough study, and natural talent play a role in the speed with which you progress. But it takes years. So all of that is to say, temper your expectations as a raw beginner, but don't give up. Keep going. Your drawings look good for your experience level! Honest! Keep at it, and perhaps after a few years, you'll see that you were doing the right thing all along. But if you quit now, you'll never know if you could truly speak, because you just didn't give yourself enough time. Hope that helps. Take care.

I'm starting art at about your age. Something that is both wonderful and frustrating about art learning in my experience is that it is not linear. Sometimes you get a hit and make something awesome! Sometimes you make a piece and it's so bad you get to feeling that you've wasted your time trying to learn. Keep up with it! You can do it if you trust the process and keep going. Celebrate your wins, learn from your mistakes. Most important of all--have fun with it! Not being trite here--in my opinion, you've got to value fun first, then fundamentals. Good luck!

Please don't quit! If you give up now you might be losing something great in the future! remember art takes time!

I wouldn't worry about details, features etc, for now focus on shapes, practice shading, line quality etc. The details will come with time. I know drawing a ball, cube or cylinder and shading it isn't very exciting, but the practice pays off and ultimately most drawings are just a combination of shapes. I've got sketchbooks that are just full of shading squares, cross hatching, shaded shapes, water droplet practice, the "Wet look", the "dry look", shiny and dull forms. Is it boring, yeah, kind of but I do improve with practice. I have other sketch books when I want to draw something more than just exercises. Another nice thing with sketch books is you can quickly see your progress. Go back and look at stuff you did a month ago, 6 months ago, a year ago. You may not feel like you are improving, but when you can see the progress it helps you see that you are in fact getting better. Looking at your drawings they really are not bad particularly if you've only been at it a few months. They need some work, but you've got something to work with. We tend to be our worst critics. You have the general outline of the seal down pretty well, you just need to work on making it look rounded through shading and cross contour lines. Use shading and highlights to give the appearance of a wet sheen on the skin. The faces will come with time. I can say much the same for your buildings. I'm not sure if the curved lines are intentional or not, but they would be much improved simply through the use of differing lines and shading to make them appear more 3 dimensional. I am a strong believer in Bob Ross's Happy Accidents. Embrace them when they occur, don't fret over mistakes, adapt and work with them. If a drawing turns out better than you hoped, don't just put it down to luck. The secret to mistakes is making them look intentional. Practice and keep your goals realistic. I just finished an in person figure drawing class, twice a week, about 3 hours a day for 16 weeks. When I started my drawings were pretty bad, short legs, big heads, asymmetrical and flat, but 100 hours (give or take) of sitting and drawing led to a huge improvement. I'm still not a great figure artist, but at least my figures are more of less proportional now and the general shapes are decent. Most of us lack the discipline to establish enough time to draw. I'm sure you've go a dozen things competing for your time. The Proko drawing basics is a good class, but it only covers so much. If you are having trouble with specific issues, don't be reluctant to look around for another viewpoint from a book or another video series. If you have the opportunity to take an in person drawing class, even if it is just a 1 day or weekend seminar, I've found the time to be very worthwhile. Video and books are great, but I've found the interaction with the instructor and other students very worthwhile, and it can lead to other opportunities. I struggle with discipline and the classroom setting has helped me immensely even when I am working alone from a book or video. I guess it gave me the kick I needed to get over some of my initial hurdles.

So I've been doing this off and on for 10 years... and I'm still dreadful at drawing. Usually I stick with it for 6 to 12 months and then take a 6 to 12 month break because I just get so frustrated with it. I've gone a little over a year now without quitting and the things that are helping me are: A: Schedule Academic time. 90 minutes in the morning Monday thru Friday. Whether it be Proko, or an academic book. Everyday on the weekdays before the day gets started I draw fro 90 minutes. B: Making a deviant art account and following people at or around my level. I love this place but is depressing when you're constantly in the bottom .0001% of people posting their work for public consumption. I still strongly suggest that you post up your work and be open for critique and comments, it should (in theory) help you grow but it's nice to find and talk to artist that are at or around our level. C: Look at artist that I don't admire. Strange as it sounds, I've been feeling better about my art making journey looking at underground comic artist and even some mainstay's like Liefeld, Eastman and Laird. I don't like their art... like at all. But hey! They got it out there! They told their stories confidently with their chest out. That's all that I really want at the end of the day. I'm nearly 40 years old... the chances of me ever learning to draw like Al Williamson or John Byrne are slim to nil. And I'm fine with it. It's cool to keep striving towards that but... I kinda know it will never happen. D: Try to have fun while drawing. This is the hardest one for me to do. Things are fun when your good at them... and I'm not good at drawing... like at all. But picking a personal project and drawing something that actually interest me helps a bit. I do my best to shut off the disappointed portion of my brain (which is 99.9% of it) play some soft music and just draw and work on the project on the weekends and get it close to the finish as possible. Not sure if you'll find any of that helpful because as I stated above... I'm still terrible at drawing. I'm hoping by applying these things will prevent me from taking any more long breaks from which I can safely say have not helped me get better. Best of Luck.

Just so that you get an idea of where I'm at: These are some of my less bad pages.