Thoughts on Motivation & Creating Good Art Habits
Someone recently reached out to me with the concern of “I don’t know how to stay motivated”, which is something I had to sit and think about how to put into words. My instinct is was to say, if you want something done you just do it. But that’s what everyone probably says and is kind of a lame answer. This concept of “having motivation/not having motivation” might actually be a multi faceted problem, that isn’t solved by “just doing it”
Motivation is a fickle and personal thing, and usually is what we tell ourselves is the problem, when it’s usually not as simple as “having motivation” or “not having motivation”. Ultimately, it’s up to you to “find motivation” through whatever it is you want to achieve in your personal art or life. The goal of wanting to improve is a boring journey of studies, practice and extraneous things you feel obligated to draw (or what other people are telling you that you SHOULD be drawing) even though you may not want to draw it. Telling people to “just do it” is technically the correct advice, but it is annoyingly vague when you don’t exactly know where to start, so here is my advice on that and some practices that might help:
Be patient while improving, everyone improves at different rates and it’s not fair to measure yourself to other’s success - it’ll come in time. Dedicate time to studies and practice, start out each drawing session by doing warm up sketches or thumbnails instead of jumping right into something big and expecting to nail it on the first sketch because that is a ridiculous standard to hold yourself to. Doing timed figure drawings is a great way to warm up (30 sec to 5 minutes poses are good for loosening up, anything longer than 5 minutes becomes more of a rendering exercise). While doing timed drawings, focus on trying to get the whole figure drawn as “accurately” as possible within the time frame, and by “accurately” I mean, it “should read as a figure doing a thing even if it’s not accurate to your model”.
Try doing smaller or short term projects, something that won’t exhaust you because you’ve been trying to render a nostril hair for 20 hours. Do warm up sketches and thumbnails (don’t spend more than 2 minutes on each) before diving into a big illustrations, and I’ll say it again, it’s ridiculous to expect yourself to nail something in one go. Try thumb-nailing out multiple versions of your illustration/pose/concept/what-have-you because sometimes your first drawing isn’t always going to be your best drawing and you might find something better if you keep drawing things - sometimes you have to draw 100 “bad” drawings to get to 1 “good” drawing (and if those first figurative or literal 100 drawings are thumbnail quality, it’s less of an overwhelming number).
Time yourself. Find out how long it takes you to make something so when you start a project you know in advance how much time you need to dedicate to it (which in turn, may also help with any scheduling problems if you’re juggling multiple projects). If you’re taking commissions or want to take commissions, it’s good to know how long you can turn something around so that you can tell your client when to expect something AND so that you have a better idea of what is fair to charge for your time. If you have Windows, work.exe is a great little program for timing yourself.
Have personal projects you can delve into, something that interests or is fun for you. Take your time with them, don’t worry about having to produce content for other people or to try and gain a following, you are doing this for you and no one else and it should make you happy first (but if it makes other people happy then hey, win-win). Be genuine, your followers and supporters will appreciate your work more if it’s sincere rather than blatantly trying to appeal to a fanbase to get those sweet sweet reblogs. If there is a personal project that you feel obligated to work on and it’s exhausting to even think about working on it, take a break from it for a while or find a side project.
Take breaks. Especially when you’ve been at it non stop for a while. There is no shame in taking breaks. Never stopping is NOT a healthy approach because whether we like it or not, we are all tied to this corporeal existence and our physical bodies have needs. Also, creative burnout is real and sometimes you just have to let yourself mentally recharge. HOWEVER, don’t let your breaks go too long because drawing is a lot like working out, you won’t get that hot bod if you don’t go to the gym at least a couple times a week (however long your breaks are up for you to decide, but in my opinion, a month is way too long)
Get off the computer and do some traditional art. If you work on an Intuos or a non-screen tablet, change things up and draw on paper. Personally, that not-looking-where-you’re-drawing thing tends to hinder speed and control, because working like that has it’s own learning curve that doesn’t exactly line up with the traditional methods of drawing. I get it, an Intuos is all you have/can afford to make digital art and that’s totally fine, but instead of doing things 100% digital, try to do 60% of the work on paper, get whatever you’re working on to a tied down sketch, THEN go digital for the final render.
Find an art community online or in your physical community. Doing art is a very solitary activity but that doesn’t mean you have to figure things out on your own. Sometimes some outside perspective can go a long way and being amongst “your people” is a really uplifting experience. Don’t know where to find an online art community? How about you try Artists Every Day! We have a Discord server
Take a step back and try and rediscover what it is you like about art. Whether it’s your career or your hobby, there should be a certain level of enjoyability and satisfaction you get out of whatever it is you like to do, otherwise why do it? There will always be times where you’re not 100% satisfied with everything that you do and that’s a totally normal thing to feel! Treat each “bad drawing” as a learning experience rather than a failure and use it as jumping off point for when you do your studies. Tracing is (contrary to popular belief) a GREAT way to warm up your hand and to practice the shapes of things because drawing is a muscle memory thing (just don’t put those tracings online and claim that they are yours because that’s not so okay haha).
Art is annoyingly time consuming, most people I know have a love hate relationship with it but it is the kind of thing that does pay off in the end so long as you are willing to put in the time and effort. The satisfaction of finishing something trumps all the annoyances preceding that moment, which personally and to put it simply, is what keeps me going and wanting to always make more art.
Motivation is not an external thing you stumble upon, the planets do not have to be aligned for motivation to happen, there isn’t a motivation fairy that hands out motivation, it comes from YOU, your ambitions and your willingness to act and persevere. I can’t stress enough that this is a personal journey and not me or anyone else can tell you what’s the right thing for you but hey, maybe all some of you need is some of that outside perspective thing I mentioned to set you in the right direction.
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