zerotoheroart

[zerotoheroart]

Hello! My name is JT and I suck at drawing. Lol. But I’m not beating myself up about it. I’ve done that for years already and I’m over that. So, just to bring you up to speed. I am in my late 20s and I’ve been drawing since I was about 19, so nearly ten years now of drawing almost every day. There’s just one problem, I leveled up in skill at around 22, or 23 and stopped. I haven’t gotten any better in any noticeable way since I was in my early 20s and I’ve finally become mature enough to admit why I still suck. I. Did. Not. Practice. Correctly. They say that practice makes perfect, but the reality is that perfect practice makes perfect. If you practice to do something the wrong way, you won’t learn how to do that thing correctly. It’s just as plain as that. 

For the longest time, I felt like drawing was a magical thing, a gift bestowed upon the gods chosen few to be able to put pencil to paper and create worlds, objectify nature, tell stories, and just generally wow the socks off people. This is not the way it works, but for years I thought that to be the case. So although I’ve always wanted to be an artist and tell super cool stories, I never practiced drawing because when I was a kid I drew a picture as part of a school project and everyone laughed at it because it was so bad. (It was a picture of Pikachu from Pokemon and it was so awful the good artist in the class drew a picture of pikachu right next to mine just to show how much better she was than me). Anywho, mild childhood trauma aside, I didn’t try to draw seriously again until I was 19 and in college. I was getting a graphic design degree, and for those who don’t know, you don’t need drawing skills to do graphic design. Making logos and whatnot requires a good eye for design, color theory, etc., but not drawing skills. That said, some of the students in my class were extremely good at drawing and it reminded me how much I wanted to be good at something like that, so I bought a sketchbook and started drawing. 

The problem was that I felt behind. I was 19 and most of the good artists in the class had been drawing since they were little kids, so I felt like I needed to find shortcuts to get gud quick! Basically I skipped right over the fundamentals and tried to use every shortcut imaginable to get to where I “wanted to be and should have been already”. I didn’t draw shapes, or work on perspective, or anatomy, or any of that crap. I didn’t have time! I needed to get good ASAP! So I brute forced that shit and skipped all the introductory stuff and went straight into characters, and architecture, and animals and animation….and I absolutely sucked. It wasn’t all bad, like I said before I got “better”, but never good, never to a level that would be considered professional by any means of the word. So I woke up with a rapidly approaching birthday realizing that I only had a short time before I was no longer a 20 something and became a 30 something. An existential crisis ensued. 

My best friend in the whole world is an amazing artist. They are a 3D animator, and they can draw the most badass shit you can imagine as well. Meanwhile, I drew like a ten year old after a couple art classes. Not that I am comparing myself to anyone else, but my friend is proof that studying art the right way is the best way. So I swallowed my pride, looked myself in the mirror, and said “JT, you aren’t getting better at art. You have to change the way you do things or one day you’ll be 50, 60, 70 not drawing any better than you are now!” So I decided to empty my cup, admit I was a rank amateur, and needed proper study. I am back to square one. I accept that. I am taking on the mindset that today is the first day that I am learning how to draw. It will be years before I get to a professional level, but practicing in a professional manner will actually get me there, as long as I persevere. So here today I am at the wax on wax off stage of art. I’m drawing basic shapes. Hundreds, and hundreds of basic shapes, every single day for at least the next 14 days. I aim to at least do ten pages of shapes a day. Once I can do this with confidence, I will move on to volume and practice drawing 3D shapes like spheres and cubes. 

I am writing this as a journal to not only motivate myself, but to hopefully motivate others to see someone go from zero to hero! I’m gonna be training like the main character from a shonen anime from now on until I get as strong at art as I can! My goal in life is to tell the one story I’ve always wanted to tell, and by jove I’m gonna do it. If you want to follow my journal and journey please stop by each week for new progress updates. I will be journaling this entire thing so that I can prove that with the right practice and effort ANYONE can become a good artist. Wish me luck!