Analyzing my Art Block

I get stuck in ruts sometime. Drawing ruts and I'm honestly of the opinion that drawing ruts don't really exist.... let me explain. It's not that I can't think of anything to draw, it's that I can't think of anything to draw that other people would care to see. The problem there is obvious. It's either nothing I feel like drawing I want to share or I feel like I've already drawn the same thing over and over and it bothers me to think I'll be doing yet it again. In my opinion these are both very easy things to fix and if I did fix them, I wouldn't be in a so-called "art block" or "rut".

To fix the first problem, I just need to not give a shit about what anyone else thinks of what I draw. That is a HUGE problem for me. I have plenty of friends who also draw and I think highly of them so I worry constantly about what they see me doing. I don't want what I draw to change their opinion of me. It's hard to get over that and the only way I have found is by drawing whatever I want and keeping it to myself. I don't share everything I draw. I do share about 80% with the internet though and maybe 40% with my real life friends, which is drastically lower than one would think.

The second problem is only due to my own laziness. There are a hundred ways to draw the same idea and if I only looked, did some more research and was willing to experiment I would find the same subject matter interesting over and over again. I might even find better ways of portraying the emotion I wanted. This is why you sometimes see the same sketch from me a couple times with different lighting or colouring. It's because I realized what was missing or had a sudden idea I wanted to test out so pulled out an already started sketch.

I'm sure most people are wondering why I'm sharing this by now. I hope it helps anyone else who is in an art block. Try sitting back and thinking about just why you "can't think of anything to draw" or "stare at a blank piece of canvas for an hour". There is probably something internally holding you back from creating. So grab your sketchbook and pencil and take a moment to think about what you REALLY like drawing. Really, truly like drawing and do it.

Whispers- Wip

I won't post the images of myself I used for reference. lol but believe me, it was hard to pose this out when I am only one person! Also, I deleted all the thumbnails I did for this... ooops. Three screen caps isn't enough to really see what I was doing, but I was inking by the seat of my pants anyways so there isn't much to learn from me.

Shoes

Today I was distracted by my shoes. Seriously. They weren't even new shoes, but I rarely get the chance to wear them with skinny jeans so seeing the laces for once was kind of neat. Not only that, I was interested in how the pant leg (since I tuck them under the shoe) bunch around the top of my shoes. So I went home and took some reference just for fun. The fabric of my pant leg wasn't quite as bunched up as I had hoped so the folds in the fabric weren't as much fun to reference as I was expecting. Still, I think this will come in very handy for drawing shoes, which I have a lot of trouble with.

In lieu of my shoes, here are some shots of my roommate's:






Anyone else have shoes they care to share? Bonus points for them having pant legs tucked inside.

Painting Practise: Kyo

Just thought I would share how I went about this practise piece. I was thinking about uploading to my dA, but I question how well it will be received. I still think his face looks overall weird and I don't know why... it's annoying. Also, you can see where I just got impatient with the hand and left the lines in.

I got the skin colours from this image. I also had a ton of torso images up for reference, but I really should have pulled up a profile picture of the face and fixed the line work instead of just using a picture of the face for colour and light reference.


Overall, I think this was a success.