Need help, feeling stuck on "intermediate++" level
3d
Delivrione
I’m 24. Every time I finish a painting, I experience something like postpartum depression. I start to hate my own work, I don’t know why. I want to finally break through to a more professional level, but it feels like I’m stuck at an "intermediate++" stage. It’s like carrying a stone sword with max-level enchantments... If you have any ideas about what’s going on, could you share your thoughts? I try to dedicate a lot of time to composition and value ranges, yet I still feel like a total beginner in the grand scheme of things, even though I’ve been painting for quite a while. On average, I spend 8 to 19 hours of actual work on a single piece, which stretches out over a week or even longer. It’s really hard for me to force myself to paint for long periods because of my ADHD.
Matthew Manghi
I think these look great! Just keep going. My uncle has a saying “luck is the intersection between opportunity and preparedness”. Just keep working away and you will keep improving and eventually an opportunity will present itself and you’ll be ready. Just be patient and keep working away. I broke in as a concept artist in my early 40s and I suspect I could have done so much earlier in life if I’d been more willing to just hunker down and work/study so I was more prepared for opportunities that arose. I was impatient in my 20s though, and so I didn’t stay as focused on study and practice as I should have been. In the end I think art is much more about a life of study and practice than any sort of achieving a “level”. These look really great though. I say just keep at it.
@prokulous
Something that has helped me not hate my work so much is saving as many art pieces that I've worked on as possible even the drafts (simple as photographing with phone camera or a little more technical like making a timelapse). After starting that habit, I started to gain satisfaction from seeing the progress over the month and even years. This way satisfaction came not just from completing a piece but also the process/journey of completing it. I also realized that when I hated my work it wasn't necessarily that it was a bad art piece, but it simply didn't match the original vision that I saw in my head; and because I created every stroke, I was more prone to being aware of even the miniscule details that were less than perfect. So, there was sometimes an anticlimactic feeling of working on something so hard and still not living up to the expectations of the vision. I suspect you may go through something similar, since your art pieces look amazing to a fresh pair of eyes like mine seeing your work for the first time. My two suggestions would be: 1) find ways of finding enjoyment from the process of creating and not just from the final draft (this can include activities not directly tied to painting that inspire a painting). 2) Don't view art as having levels that eventually reach to "advance"; since existing art techniques surpass what one can master in a lifetime and infinite more can be created. Thus art can be viewed in a positive light: as an endless source of creative possibilities; or an overwhelming dreadfull light: an endless never ending race to the finish line of mastery.
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