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DESIGN & ILLUSTRATION > DRAWING THEORY

7 Sins of Beginner Artists:

What Keeps You From
Being Good
by Monika Zagrobelna 1 Dec 2015 Languages: English

Drawing Theory Drawing

Everything is hard when you're a beginner, but the problem with drawing is that
everyone thinks they know how to do it. Drawings turn out well or they don't,
but you can't blame the artistit's talent that matters, right?

Absolutely... not! If you haven't seen any progress despite practicing a lot, it
doesn't mean you don't have the talent necessary to be a good artist. It may
mean you're just practicing wrong! If you don't believe me, let me show you
common mistakes made by beginner artists. Simply avoid them to kick-start
your improvement!

1. I Want to Draw It All

You draw because you have an urge to draw, it's that simple. Even though your
skills limit you, you don't want to limit yourselfyou have so many ideas to
draw! One day you draw a dragon ghting a robot. Next day you work on a
landscape. Later you decide to practice perspective to draw a whole city. You're
constantly inspired, and it feels great. If only your hand would listen...

What's Bad About It?

Drawing isn't a single skill. Even though every drawing is made of lines, using
similar hand movements, it's what happens in the brain that matters. And the
processes in the brain are different for various types of drawing.

Think about it: what is the difference between drawing and writing, in a
technical sense? Isn't the latter about drawing letters? Forget about the tool for
a moment; you can draw with a ballpoint pen and you can write with a pencil.
So, if you can write, you can already draw! What's more, you even have your
own style!

The difference is in the intention, not the result. And different parts of the brain
are used for different intentionsdifferent purposes. A written word may be
constructed of the same number of lines as a sketched horse, but for your
brain they come from two very different processes.

For example, drawing an animal is usually about "feeling" the px of the body.
Your job is only to wrap this feeling into lines. Drawing a city, on the other hand,
requires mathematical thinkingmake one line too short or at the wrong angle
and everything will be ruined. Drawing a landscape may not be even about the
lines themselvesyou should rather focus on the light and shadow, and re-
create it on paper with a series of sketchy lines.

By trying to draw every idea that comes to your mind, you unknowingly make it
hard for yourself. You may draw a nice cat, but it doesn't mean you should also
be able to draw a background for it without any problem. And constructing a
human may be very different for your mind than constructing a spaceship!

How to Fix It?

By drawing many different topics you improve at your "general drawing skill"
(B). It's huge, because it includes all the topics you can draw, so it grows very
slowly. Instead of trying to take it to 100%, focus on maximising the smaller
slowly. Instead of trying to take it to 100%, focus on maximising the smaller
skills (A). For example, it's much easier to get close to 100% at drawing cats!

You need to decide what you want to be able to draw. Instead of trying to mix
Latin and Chinese signs and wondering why they don't mean anything together,
focus on one. Don't jump from one topic to another just because you feel like
this.

Try to improve at one topic at a time, and most importantly, don't look at all
your drawings as indicators of your "general drawing skill". If you were great at
drawing cars, nobody would call you a bad artist only because you couldn't
draw a lion!

2. I Know How to Draw It, Just Let Me Try

You have seen many dogs in your life, so of course you know what they look
like! It's only that your hand doesn't understand what you tell it. You try to draw
the paws, and they turn out very weird, not as they should. And you know how
they should turn out, so why don't they?

You try once again, and again. You get a different version of paws every time,
but none of them ts your vision. Ah, how nice it would be to have talent! You
obviously don't, so your only chance is to try harder...

What's Bad About It?

You don't know how the paws should turn out. If you did, you'd draw them that
way. Don't believe me? Come on, describe them in detail. No, don't draw them. I
know the need is strong, but hold on. Imagine you've already drawn them. What
do you see? Describe it!

In most cases you'll discover you can tell very little about the object you want
to draw. You have this feeling you could draw it with all the details, but,
surprisingly, you can't even tell where these details are. Yes, the head of a rhino
is big, and it has a horn... or two horns? There's a little eye... somewhere in the
face, and the mouth is... where?

The more questions you ask yourself about the object, the better you
understand why you fail. You don't really know what you're trying to draw.
You're just able to recognize if it is what you wanted when it's already drawn.
That's why you try again, and again. Every time you give yourself something
new to recognize, but it doesn't mean you are any closer to your vision. You're
playing a guessing game!

You don't really know where the eyes should be exactlyyou can only tell if it looks "good enough" when it's already

drawn

How to Fix It?

Sure, there is a chance you'll guess the right combination of lines eventually,
but for what? Just to prove to yourself you can draw it from imagination,
without any help? If this is your goal, ne, pursue it, but don't blame lack of
talent for your failures. You chose to play this game on the highest difculty
level, so don't cry that it's hard to beat.

To draw something from imagination, rst you need to create a mind-recipe for
it. That memory of a dog isn't enoughyou need a different form of a memory
to convert it into lines. It's like a photo of a dish and a recipeit's almost
impossible to re-create the recipe from the photo when you're just a beginner
at cooking.

The mind-photo is something like this: "four legs attached to a body, long neck,
long head, long, hairy tail, hooves". This is all the information you need to
recognize a drawing of a horse, but it's not enough to draw it realistically. This
is a description of a childish scribble!

The mind-recipe is much more detailed. It contains the proportions between

legs and torso, denes where the leg bends exactly, and species the kind of
joint there is in that point of bending. It doesn't just tell you that the body of a
horse is covered with hairit denes the direction of the hairs. So that
information in your mind should look more like this:

There are three ways to obtain such a recipe:

Draw the same object many times using various referencesyour mind
will look for shortcuts for you to draw it faster each time.
Analyze various references of the object, create an actual recipe (a
reference sheet), and practice it until you remember it.
Find someone who's already created a neat reference sheet and practice it
until you remember it (be careful hereyou may repeat the mistakes of
the author!).

Before you start drawing, make sure you know the recipe. If you don't, and you
don't want to learn it, simply use a reference. It's not cheating! Sure, it's nice to
draw something from memory, but rst you need to put it there!

You can learn more about this topic from my articles:

Why Is It So Hard to Draw From Imagination? Here's How to Do It!

How to Learn to Draw: Stage 3, Visual Database
3. It's Too Late to Give Up Now
Drawing isn't easy, you know it. You're sketching this dragon and every couple
of minutes you stumble over some problem. These problems accumulate, but
you keep goingwhen you add the colors, nobody will notice something's
wrong. And you can't stop now, after all these hours!

What's Bad About It?

Basically, you're trying to decorate something broken. Even if it looked
promising at the beginning, obviously you're doing something wrong now. Don't
pretend it can be xed by adding the colorsit's unlikely. If that leg bends
wrong, and you can't erase it, why do you keep trying to nish the picture? Even
if you covered it with gold, it would not x that anatomical nightmare!

That pose was doomed from the start, but I refused to believe it. Art by me, 2010

How to Fix It?

If you can see your picture's going wrong, stop. No matter how much time
you've already invested into the creation of this piece, there's still some time
you can save if you stop now. It often takes less effort to create something
anew than to x it over and over.

If you're afraid you won't be able to draw anything so cool ever again, it reveals
a bigger problem than that wrongly bent leg. You're not condent about your
skills, which means you should practice before investing hours into one
picture. It's understandable that you want to show others how good you are,
but the truth is, for now you aren't. Don't hide that truth by pretending you
haven't made a mistake. Learn how to avoid it next time instead.

4. Every Drawing Is Sacred

You don't only nish every drawing you start. You also always remember to
post it to social media, for your friends and fans to see. No matter what it is: a
polished masterpiece, a sketch, or a study, you share everything. That's just
how you roll.

What's Bad About It?

On the surface, it seems pretty harmless. The problem lies deeper. When you
are aware that the drawing you're working on will be seen by someone, you
automatically try to adjust it to their needs. That drawing must be perfect! And
because you post every drawing, you're not even allowed to make a mistake
ever.

Mistakes are a natural side-effect of doing something new. If you want to avoid
them, the best method is to avoid new things completely. That's what may
happen to you if you share your every picture: even when lling a page in your
sketchbook with studies of a hand, you'll only choose the easy poses you feel
comfortable with. It just feels scary that your fans could see a bad drawing of
yours!
Having the public observing your every step makes you less prone to risk. If
there's a chance you may lose, it's better not to play at all and to pretend you
could win, if you wanted. You miss an opportunity to learn something by losing,
just because you don't want others to see you lose!

How to Fix It?

There are two ways. First, draw for yourself. Share only the pictures you like the
most, and leave the sketches for yourself. When studying a topic, don't think
how cool it would be to show others a full page of sketches ("Look how
productive I was today!"). Subconsciously, it makes you try harder and be less
eager to experiment. And studies aren't for you to boast overthey're to learn
from!

If you really want to brag about your productivity, it's better to combine your studies into big batches, so that the failed

experiments aren't really visible

The other way is to... relax. Learn to feel comfortable with the thought that
others can see your mistakes. Embrace your imperfection and let yourself be
bad. It's better to show others all your pictures, good and bad, than to draw
only the things you are sure will look good.

When you're a beginner, every drawing seems sacred. You start something,
then you must nish it and show it to others. It's not really the case! Go, try it
sketch something, then tear it apart, just like that. It's not the last drawing in
your life, nor is it the best picture you'll ever draw. The more attached you are to
your drawing, the harder it is for you to learn and change.

Mistakes are inevitable. Don't pretend you never draw anything bad. Let
yourself be bad, and then nd the mistakes and see what can you do to avoid
them next time. Draw to be better, not to be praised.

5. I Draw Only What You Want to See

Maybe you're not the best artist, but there are some things you're quite good at.
For example, people love your ponies. Every time you post a pony you get a lot
of positive comments; it's very nice. You used to draw other things, too, but
nobody reacted to them at all, so you stopped.

What's Bad About It?

Because you feel good when someone praises your artwork, it's natural you
want to create what they want to see. The problem occurs when this need
becomes pathologicalyou can't create anything new in fear it will not be
received positively.

Additionally, you become a slave to your public. Your needs don't matteryour
job is to please them. In return, you get praise, but wouldn't it be nicer to get
praise for something you've chosen to draw yourself?
 Fan art is cool, but make sure it's not the only thing you're allowed to draw (picture from Paint Foxy From the Five

Nights at Freddy's Series in Adobe Photoshop)

How to Fix It?

Follow your heart! If you like drawing ponies, ne, but don't do it just because
you think it's the only thing they want to see. If you want to have fans of your
art, not the style/topic you use, you must do your thing. Fan art may be a great
method to bring attention, but it shouldn't be the only way to keep your public.

And sometimes it's better to have few real fans than to serve dozens of those
who don't really care about you.

Here's something to read if you want to know more:

Dening and Valuing Art

Realism, Photorealism, and Style in Drawing

6. These Weren't My Lines, But They Are Now

You have many ideas, but you nd yourself unable to start a drawing. You
bypass this problem by using line art and bases offered by other artists, and
sometimes you use a photo to create your own line art by tracing its lines.

What's Bad About It?

It's OK if you draw only for fun, but if you want to be a good artist, this will not
take you anywhere. Arranging your house isn't the same as building it, and you
can't call yourself a builder just because you put a sofa in the living room.
Similarly, you're not really an artist if you are only able to nish someone else's
job.

And it's not only about the denitions. Starting a drawing is the hardest job
you'll never learn how to do it if you simply avoid that part. The people who
created the line art for you had to learn it rst. You can do it, tooif you only
give up on easy solutions.

The worst version of this "sin" is when you trace and use bases, but you
pretend you don't. That's like taking a bus to the nishing line of a race. Even
when everyone praises you, the truth doesn't changeyou can't draw, no matter
how good your pictures seem to be.
 It's not about the result, but about the process that leads to it

How to Fix It?

The solution is very simple: to improve, do what is hard. If it's hard, it means
you can't do it yet, so if you manage to make it easy, it will mean you are better.
Avoiding hard things does the oppositeit's very uncomfortable to come back
to them once you learn how to bypass the difculty.

You can fantasize about how talent makes everything easy and justify your
cheating this way, but it's all about your laziness. People spend hours every day
trying to learn how to draw, and you just say, "I don't have talent, so I must...
help myself to create anything".

If you want to be a good artist, change your mindset and start working hard. If
you only want to be praised, even due to false reasons, then... why are you even
reading this?

7. It's My Style!
You know your drawings aren't perfect, but they're decent. You love it when
people appreciate the time you spent to show them your art, but you seethe
with resentment when someone does the opposite. How dare they tell you
what's wrong with your picture?? It's your drawing, you know the best what it
should look like!

What's Bad About It?

First, two denitions:

Facttruth for everyone, based on objective attributes ("water is wet")

Opiniontruth for some people, based on subjective attributes ("roses are
beautiful")

People commenting on your work are simply voicing their opinions. "It's so
beautiful!" isn't a fact, because not everyone will agree. This statement doesn't
"dene" your artwork as beautiful, nor does it change its state somehow. All it
means is that the person likes your picture.

Analogously, when someone says "You can't draw", it's their opinion. It doesn't
mean you can't draw (according to some objective standard), only that this
person doesn't think highly of your skills. Their opinion doesn't change the
truth!

The problem is humans tend to simplify everything to think and react faster.
Fact is something that everyone agrees on, but "everyone" may be simplied to
"everyone I ask". Then, if you ask ten people, each of them has the power to
create a "fact" by stating their opinion!

When you take it that way, every opinion you hear is very risky. Sometimes it's
better to shut them off completely ("No comments please, I'm just learning").
But then you won't get any positive comments either, so you'll never know if
your picture is good! You have two ways to solve it:

Draw something perfect to get positive opinions only.

Draw something imperfect, and then call every negative opinion false.
The rst way is impossibleyou'll never please everyone (but you can simulate
this situation by showing your works to favorable viewers only). The other is
simply dishonestit's as if you said: "Only those who agree with me are right".

How to Fix It?

Let the opinions be what they really arestatements of personal feelings. If
you don't like tomatoes, you don't need to explain it to anyone; they just taste
bad to you. It's neither good nor bad, unless someone who loves their home-
grown tomatoes asks you to judge their taste. Your dislike doesn't make them
bad, but the farmer may feel disappointed.

Everyone has a right to not like your art, just as you don't have to admire Mona
Lisa. Someone says your picture is bad? Fine! They're just as right as someone
who says it's good. React to both the same way. However, there are objective
standards you can use to state a fact.

We separate things from other things by creating denitions for them. If

something doesn't meet its denition, it's either an abnormal version of this
thing, or simply not this thing. If you encounter a bird that doesn't lay eggs, it
means it's not a bird. If you see a horse with wings, it's not a horse. But a horse
with its knees bent the other way is still a horse, just an abnormal one.

From left to right: a cat, an abnormal cat, and not-a-cat. You can't blame someone for noticing that in your style cats

look abnormal!

It means that if someone says "Wolves have longer legs", they're stating a fact,
not an opinion. Shouting "It's my style!" doesn't change the fact that "your"
wolves have shorter legs than the real ones. They just do. People may not like
it (opinion), but a person noticing the truth is simply right.

Facts can't be good or badonly your opinion about them makes them so. Your
anger at them simply means you'd like them to be different. For example, if
someone says your bear doesn't look like a real bear (because it'sdigitigrade,
like a dog), and you're angry, you're really angryat your inability to draw a
realistic bear. And, again, you think that it's the person who states the fact who
creates it, so you're directing your anger towards them.

If you want to be a better artist, you need to be more open to critique. These
are only words about your artwork, nothing more. You can ignore them or use
them to improve. Ask that commenter, why do they think it doesn't look like a
real bear? What should you do to make it more realistic?

Your commenters often see more than you. Listen to the facts, learn from
them, and apply their teaching to your pictures. With time you'll get fewer
comments like this, because there will be little to improve! Don't pretend you're
already good, or you'll never be.

Read these if you want to know more:

Don't Take It Personally: How to Make Critique Work for You

Realism, Photorealism, and Style in Drawing

Conclusion

Drawing is deceptively simple, and our misconceptions about it can easily

become an obstacle for our improvement. I hope these seven sins will never
stand in your way again!
stand in your way again!

If you're interested in the topic of improvement as an artist, you should also

enjoy these articles:

10 Drawing Myths That Block Your Progress

"Can I Draw?"How to Tell If You're Good Enough

Monika Zagrobelna
Poland

I'm a Polish artist with a long experience in doing useless, but creative
things. Since I realized how bad I was after all these years, I decided to
take fate into my own hands and actually study things in order to draw
them properly. My tutorials are the result of thorough studies - I hope
they help you as they helped me!

mzagrobelna

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