#IGNORE THE HANDS. BY THE WAY. NOT MY PROUDEST MOMENT IN MY HAND DRAWING CAREER.

[askewhammerart]

I haven’t at all read the epilogue yet so I wouldn’t be surprised if this mischaracterized them but this was simply too funny to pass the opportunity on

[ghostofsnails]

rambling about art "Perfectionism" (+ my experience)

Lately I've been looking for advice about curbing perfectionism but couldn't find anything that worked for me. I feel that so much of the advice out there is just too surface level. It wants to target what I consider the symptoms (perfectionism itself / fear of messing up) and not the real source of the problem, or the "why", which is something that will look a little different for everybody. If you really want to curb perfectionism, the serious answer, in my opinion, is to start by looking inward. If you've done that and found that you're anything like me, with problems that feel like compulsive fixing, uncontrollable hyperfocus, and/or paranoid thoughts that your art career is doomed and everyone is secretly making fun of you because the angle of your oc's mouth is off by 2 degrees, hearing the advice that looks like "Here's a fun little drawing exercise to do every day!" over and over again is probably starting to feel more demoralizing than anything. So instead, here are some tricks/reframing devices that I use in place of some of the really general ones.

The first piece of advice I see everywhere is to "make bad art on purpose" to get over the fear of making mistakes. As a literal exercise, this just doesn't work great for my specific problem. Sure, I can draw some crappy sketch in 5 seconds if I want or waste all my spoons on making something I hate, but it offers no real support in terms of my "compulsive fixing" issue, which is where everything really goes wrong in my process. If it was as easy as saying "I'm just going to Not Have Compulsions!" I wouldn't be here writing this. But I have learned to relieve a small amount of the paranoia and anxiety that my compulsions stem from with the following exercise!

Essentially, I look through some of my favorite artists' work and find some stuff I really enjoy. While I do that, I look for mistakes, confusing choices, and inconsistencies in the work. I then ask myself: Why do I think this art piece still works so well despite all these errors? Does seeing these errors change my feelings about the piece or about the person who made them for the worse? (Spoiler alert, the answer to the second question is always no.)

I will then literally repeat the answers to those questions over and over and over again to myself while I draw. Does this completely or even mostly fix the problem? Definitely not. But if you're like me and at the point of desperation, this is something that's had a small yet significant impact on my workflow and my mindset as I approach making art in general. If my favorite artist can make a weird mistake on something and I love the piece anyways, then maybe it's okay for me to also make and leave in a weird mistake or two. The other good news is that I've noticed the effect of this has increased over time! In the past few months, and for the first couple of times in my life, I've been able to actually ignore a small handful of my compulsions to fix things while drawing. Which is actually so insane and probably my proudest moment of "invisible" progress I've ever made.

It's definitely worth noting, however, that this exercise is not going to work if you don't or can't approach it in good faith. You cannot give up immediately with "I'll never be this good, this artist's work is perfect." Nobody's work is perfect. If you look for ages and genuinely can't see any mistakes, that probably means you're looking at an artist way outside your skill level, and believe me, I've been there, it's super demoralizing. That's why most of the artists I look up to now are those whose work is just a few levels above or next to mine, because being able to spot errors not only makes their work feel more authentic and easily relatable, but functionally speaking, it keeps me inspired without getting locked into self-pity mode.

I'm obviously not going to put any artists I love on the spot here, but I'm going to list a few errors that I myself see very frequently in my specific corner of the art world: Inconsistent or straight up weird limb lengths, floating facial features, broken lines, color spill, and awkward tangents. Often times, the "errors" I notice aren't even true errors, just results of stylization that I get paranoid about in my own work. And this is super important too -- seeing those kinds of "errors" in art that I unabashedly love helps to soothe the paranoia that I'm doing something "wrong" or that everybody secretly hates me because I drew the eye 2 pixels too far to the right.

Other times, what you notice doesn't have to be an "error" at all. Maybe you just see untapped potential or find something that you would have done differently. For example, maybe you think a different light source or perspective could have improved the atmosphere of a piece. I often feel that many of my favorite artists' work suffers from a lack of contrast.

But the point of this entire exercise is that even when I apply a mock version of my compulsive behavior with art that I love and pick it apart as much as I possibly can, I realize that I STILL LOVE the artwork I'm looking at just as much if not more despite all the "mistakes". Rarely do the errors take anything away from the piece that they don't replace with a sense of life and authenticity. And as a bonus, now I'm ten times as excited to go draw and try out some new things!

And for the record -- this isn't the sort of thing I dedicate "15 minutes a day!" to doing, but something that comes pretty naturally to me whenever I come across art I really love. And speaking of TIME, one other piece of advice I see everywhere is to set a timer and give yourself just a few minutes to draw such and such. This is a piece of advice that logically I know SHOULD work, and despite the fact that it DOESN'T for me I would STILL recommend it heartily. My only problem with this piece of advice is that my brain just does not work this way. Time is just way too arbitrary and setting a "fake deadline" doesn't do anything to fix the issues that are making me take forever in the first place. So instead, in order to try and improve my speed in my digital art, I've started to stay more zoomed out of my canvas as I draw. This better mimics the experience of sketching on paper, something that's always been easier for me since fixing mistakes is so much less convenient than it is on a digital program.

Don't get me wrong though, if you're like me and used to drawing while so zoomed in you can count the pixels, this is going to be even harder than it sounds. I avoided this piece of advice for years because it was so viscerally uncomfortable to let go of the feeling of "control" I had over my pen strokes while zoomed in. But I gave in a few weeks ago when I was having such a hard time getting a pose down after days of attempts that I was willing to try anything. And honestly, the results were a MUCH needed morale boost. I saw improved speed, dynamism, and stylization pretty much instantly. I've been pushing myself to do this with all my subsequent art pieces and while I forget to do it every 15 minutes it's still made a surprisingly large and positive impact on my workflow.

Yes, I still feel the compulsion to "fix everything" in the refinement stage. But if I pair this with the advice above, the amount of compulsive fixes I makes goes way, way down. Especially if I remain relatively zoomed out during the refinement stage!

In conclusion, I'm not saying that the og art advice was dumb or bad or never works. This post is extremely specific to my situation. As far as I know I might be the only person in the world who spends extra nightmarish hours on every piece adding and deleting and readding unnoticeable layer effects, color adjustments, and details and "fixing" and unfixing and "fixing" every conceivable possible detail whilst sitting there begging myself to just stop so I can go eat or move on with my life or do literally anything else. And the fact that on top of that I go into hyperfocus every time I so much as LOOK at my Ipad makes any "take a break" solution near impossible if I don't have a seriously involved outside support system to take my mind off of art, which I don't.

Thanks to all of this plus typical life stuff, I've been drawing less and less in the past few years. It's hard to start anything knowing that once I do, I'm pretty much not going to have a life again until it's finished.

And drawing less also means that when I do draw, I'm drawing much slower, which draws out the length of time I have to deal with these problems and therefore makes them unignorable. I used to be able to finish up a full piece in 5-8 hours, basically a school night, and because it was finished I could focus on my responsibilities the next day until I started to draw again. But now I'm spending anywhere from 8-16 hours on simple bust up character drawings. That's crazy! Honestly reading all this back, I guess it's no wonder I'm so burnt out and exhausted all the time!

I'm never going to completely stop drawing. Even if I wanted to, I don't think I physically could. But I would really love to get to a point where art feels fun and freeing again, and where sitting down to sketch on paper for 10 minutes doesn't mean throwing the entire day away.

So if anyone else out there has got advice for me I would absolutely love to hear it. And I'd also love to hear from anyone who can relate to any of this, because as much as I was joking earlier about being the only one in the world, I haven't actually been able to meet anyone else who gets what I'm going through. And wow it is so difficult to put into words, too. I rewrote this post a million times. But that's all for now! Thanks for reading.

[oldsoldierr]

The Carnation ~ Part 1

summary: the media always told you that the famous art critic bucky barnes is an arrogant, rude playboy and you agree, but something still draws you to him. is there a deeper reason to why he acts the way he does or is he the class A jackass you first met?

art critic!bucky x artist!reader

word count: about 2.8k

series masterlist 

Your art studio was silent except for the occasional paper turning from the person across the room from you. The only sound you were paying attention to was the smooth sliding of the brush on the canvas as you traced a carnation from the actual deep maroon flower behind the painting. That was until you heard a jingle from the door. Soon after a set of footsteps came your way. You sighed putting your paintbrush down. 

“Hi, Steve.” He gave you a charming smile and sat down next to you with his sketchbook. 

“How was your day?”

“Actually pretty good. I got almost a third of my commissions done,” he responded.

“How was yours?” He took out some charcoal from his bag.

“Ugh, not great. I was almost halfway done with a painting when fucking Brock bumped into me and made me drop it before it was dry.” Your fingers curled into a fist just thinking about it but you strategically didn’t go into the details to avoid getting too angry. 

“Well, I think I have some news that might just make your day better.” Steve grinned. 

You looked at Steve curiously.

“What is it?”

“‘You remember Natasha? The one I talked to you about yesterday?” You paused for a moment racking your memory, then nodded.

“Your coworker?”

“Mhm. Well, she told me word has it that Bucky Barnes is coming to Brooklyn!” He looked to you for a reaction. You shifted at the mention of the name. 

“Is that really a good thing?” You asked. Steve looked at you like you just said the earth was flat. 

“Are you deaf? I just said the Bucky Barnes, as in the world-famous art critic is coming to our city!” he emphasized. When he still didn’t get a good reaction he elaborated.

“He’s made so many careers with just one review. He could be your chance at a better life! He could be your chance to launch your art career into the stratosphere!” You looked at him skeptically with a raised eyebrow.

“I really don’t think so,” You replied logically. “I mean, he’s practically the Gordon Ramsey of art. And not in the funny, badass way. Did you forget he’s also broken more than his fair share of careers?”

“Yeah, of course, I know, but it’s a risk worth taking!” he tried again.You looked down at the floor nervously and fidgeted with your fingers. This time it was Steve’s turn to look suspicious.

“Wait, you’ve never been afraid of a risk.” He realized. “You literally jumped off a bridge once just because you were bored. What’s really going on?” You bit your lip. You debated the best course of action inside your head before saying, “Fine.” You sighed.

“I just-- I don’t like him,” you admitted.

“What, why?” Steve asked, looking slightly offended.

“He’s just such that kind of person ya know? The kind of person that thinks they’re better than everyone else and struts around acting like they own everything.”

“What do you mean? You’ve never even met him before!” Steve countered. You shrugged.

“I don’t need to. I’ve seen guys like him before.” you frowned.

“They all think the same. The only thing they think about is trying to get in girls’ pants. He got just a little famous and now he thinks he’s the shit and that his opinion is the only right one. always acting like he’s the best,” You scorned.

“That’s quite an assumption to make considering you barely know anything actually about him.” The blonde hesitated before saying the next part. “He’s really not too bad,” Steve combed his hand through his hair. You couldn’t stop the puzzlement that crept onto your face. Steve had never been one to be hypocritical.

“Oh, so you know everything about him?” you said sarcastically.

“Well, actually…” Steve rubbed his neck. “...he’s kinda been my best friend since we were kids, so I know a fair bit about him.” That caught you off guard. 

“Wait-- what?” You sat there dumbfounded for a minute.

“How come this is the first time I’m hearing about this?

Steve gave you a  half-smile.

“Well, you know, I didn’t want to scare you off or anything.” He let out a breathy laugh.

“You’d be surprised at how many people have completely blocked me out because of him.” Steve tapped his pointer finger as he awaited your reaction.

Man, this boy is dumb.

“Stevie, you’re literally the only one who talked to me after I first moved here,” You recounted. 

“Even though I don’t like Barnes, you couldn’tve scared me off if you tried,” You promised. “Seriously.” You looked at him.

 “And you’ll never get rid of me ever again,” you joked. The blonde gave you a relieved sigh.

“Now back to me being mad at you.” You quickly reset from that surprise heart to heart. 

“You should’ve told me!”

“Well it’s a bit late for that now,” he teased. A chuckle bubbled from your throat. You thought for a moment.

 “Just as long as I never have to talk to him, I’ll be fine,” you said light-heartedly. At this statement, Steve looked rather alarmed. You looked at him questioningly.

“What is it?” you asked.

“Is there paint on my face or something?” Steve looked at you rather guiltily.

“Hey, so I sort of did something,” He said cautiously.

“Yeah of course?” You started to get anxious. 

“I kind of expected you to respond positively to the Bucky news and I may have…” Steve trailed off.

“What?”

“I may have already invited him,” Steve said sheepishly. You looked at him with a face of pure panic.

“Oh, shit—I mean—that’s not too bad?” You bit your tongue. 

“As long as I have enough time to prepare,” You tried to convince yourself, but judging from the blondes’ expression, there was more to it than just that.

“When’s he coming?” you asked.

When Steve didn’t respond you asked again in a much more urgent tone.

“Steve, when's he coming?”

“So, yeah, about that too, um-“ Steve stuttered.

“he’s supposed to come right about… now.”

Before you could kill Steve, scream, and/or faint there was another jangle from the entrance. You looked towards the door. 

An extremely attractive man sauntered in from it. You observed his piercing baby blue eyes and dark, shaggy hair was cut just above his built shoulders.  You could tell he went to the gym from his bulky stature but most of him was covered by a cliche snobby scarf and a black, long leather jacket that probably costs more than your rent and we’re talking New York prices. There was a little stubble on his sharp jaw that framed a cocky smirk. Your breath got caught in your throat. As you took him all in, you knew you’d be lying if you said this wasn’t the goddamn most gorgeous boy you’d ever seen. Even if you hated him with all your heart.

Steve stood up to greet the man with a hug. 

“Hey man, glad you could make it,” Steve pat him on the back and the brunette returned it. Your friend turned toward you with his hand on the stranger’s shoulder. 

“Y/n-” Steve hesitantly continued. “-meet Bucky.” You were pretty sure you were having a panic attack. But somehow you still had coherent thoughts.

So this is Bucky? you wondered. He’s so much younger than I thought he was. In complete honesty, you always imagined him as a 100-year-old with a swirly mustache so a mid-twenty-year-old was quite a surprise.

You somehow composed yourself and said, somewhat politely, “Oh, uh, hi, pleasure meeting you. I’ve...heard a lot about you.” You wiped the paint off your hand before extending it to Bucky. He looked down at your hand. His eyes glanced back up before ignoring your hand completely, instead, he put his hands on his hips. You put your arm down awkwardly.

“Pleasures all mine, doll,” he flirted. A blush tinted your cheeks pink. You recoiled.

Who does this guy think he is?

Before Steve could stop him Bucky continued.

“Stevie, why didn’t you tell me how beautiful y/n is? I would’ve straightened up a bit more.” You knew it was a line, but to say you weren’t slightly charmed would’ve been deceitful.

Snap out of it, you told yourself. You had met too many guys just like him, and relationships with them always ended the same. Heartbreak and an unhealthy amount of ice cream, you thought bitterly.

“Bucky, don’t flirt with her,” Steve scolded. Bucky winked.

“I’ll try my best.” The blonde rolled his eyes but Bucky didn’t acknowledge it.

“So, this is the place you wanted me to come to?” Bucky said scanning the room. 

“Yeah, it’s a really great place, and really accepting,” Steve complimented.

 “‘Thought you’d like somewhere lowkey to get away from your-- you know,” the blonde-haired man said tentatively. Bucky rubbed his neck trying to mask his uncomfort at this topic. He quickly changed the subject, going into full critic mode.

“Hmm, the architecture’s okay,” Bucky evaluated, walking around a bit. “Did you choose the lights?” He looked directly at you. You felt his gaze burning into you.

“Uh, yes, yes I did,” You stammered out. The brunette hummed judgmentally. 

“Ideally you would’ve had completely white lights evenly placed throughout the ceiling. I assume it’d be a tad difficult to draw from reference accurately here.”

You mumbled something about fixing them while you played with your fingers insecurely. Generally, you had pretty thick skin, being in the art industry, but when Bucky Barnes tells you he doesn’t like something, it needs to go immediately, lest you become a laughing stock for the rest of your career.

“Mr. Barnes, could I give you a tour of the studio?” you offered. Bucky blinked.

“Of course. Lead the way.” He gestured for you to go forward. You pondered for a second.

“Follow me.” You proceeded to start walking around the room planning on pointing your proudest achievements out. Before you could say anything though, Bucky stopped dead in his tracks.

“This easel is at a 70-degree angle when the rest are at 90.” You honestly didn’t know what to say to that. He continued, “For maximum efficiency, I suggest making them all the same.”

You narrowed your eyes a little. This opinion seemed a bit nitpicky for you. He was supposed to be mainly judging your art anyway, not your fucking angles.

 “I’ll make note of that,” you replied curtly. Luckily, it seemed your wish for him to critic your art was granted as his eyes moved up to the painting Brock had made you drop earlier. Your heart dropped.

“Huh.” He looked at it with revolution. 

“It’s rather smudgy, don’t you think?” Bucky said looking over it. “Crisper lines create more appealing products. An artist of your age should know that by now,” He said demeaningly. You wanted to defend yourself and tell him about how it wasn’t your fault it was so smudgy but you knew better. Art critics hated excuses.

Before the brunette could make any more comments about your less proud works you spoke again.

“I’ll show you the supply closet.” You suggested. Bucky nodded. You walked to the closet door, opened it, and flicked the light on.

“Honestly this is probably my favorite part of this place. It has everything you could possibly need.” You looked at the brunette for his opinion. He nodded again but didn’t say anything. You were surprised he didn’t have any comments considering he had a lot to say just a second ago. You were getting suspicious that he wasn’t listening. You crouched down to reach a basket.

“I keep my favorite and most used supplies right here, though I’m sure you have your own preferred materials. Do you have any suggestions?” you asked expecting him to recommend some other brands or criticize your choices. When you didn’t get either you turned around. Bucky was staring at something in the previous room. As you followed his gaze you realized it was not a something, but a someone. The Infamous Bucky Barnes you didn’t like too much, to begin with, was really beginning to piss you off. 

“Uh, ahem?” you cleared your throat with only a hint of sass. Bucky snapped out of his thoughts.

“Oh, hmm? What’d you say? Sorry, I was just admiring your uh- organization.” Haha bullshit, you thought. It took all your strength not to call him out on his blatant lie.

“I asked if you had any suggestions for supplies.” He still looked distracted. Like he wanted to get this done already. He rapped his foot impatiently.

“Everythings fine,” Bucky replied lazily. Before you could say anything he spoke again.

“Hey, who’s that?” he said pointing to the person he’d been ogling earlier. You bit the inside of your mouth to stop from scoffing.

“That’s Sharon. She’s a regular artist here.” You said professionally trying to keep from saying something about Bucky catching a case. Said man smirked.

“Could I speak to her? I’d like to...learn about how things are run here.” His voice clearly indicated that was not what he was going to talk about. Avoiding Bucky’s line of view you rolled your eyes farther than you thought they ever could.

Guess the rumors were true. He is a womanizer, You thought to yourself. I can’t believe I actually thought I might have a chance. This is just how he is with everyone. Your ideas of him being interested in you flew out the window.

“Yeah, sure. Go right ahead,” You said in a tone that was just controlled enough.

You sighed as he left the closet with a click of the door. Before exiting yourself you gently hit your head on the wall a few times. This jackass of a man was really getting under your skin. You decided to just go back to your painting and hope he noticed it. As you walked back to your seat you caught a glimpse of Bucky leaning on a table near Sharon clearly chatting her up. You grimaced. 

They say never meet celebrities for a reason, you thought to yourself.

When you sat back in your chair, Steve gave you a sympathetic look.

“I know he was a bit of a jerk but he really isn’t usually like that.” Your blonde friend eyed Bucky. “I don’t know what’s gotten into him today.” You didn’t reply.

“Hey,” Steve said, trying to get your attention. You looked at him expectantly.

“He’s really not that bad of a guy once you get to know him.”

You couldn’t help the snort that came out.

“I’m pretty sure I don’t wanna know him enough to get to that point.” You knew you were being a bit harsh, but a bad day plus this was really amping everything up.

“I mean he’s an art critic,” you said exasperated. 

“but he only reviewed one of my pieces!” You humphed.

“He does everything for a reason.” He muttered. You picked up your brush again unconvinced. Steve seemed to notice as he resumed. 

“Really! Please just promise me you’ll give him a chance.” When you didn’t budge Steve gave you the puppy eyes he knew you couldn’t refuse. You groaned and dipped your head back in frustration.

“Fine,-” You grumbled. “-but know, it’s not for him, it’s for you, cause I trust your judgment.” 

I mean I’ll never see him again anyway, you thought.

Steve grinned.

“And that’s all I can ask for.” You and Steve fell into a comfortable silence for around an hour as you both worked on your projects, but the constant flirting you heard from Sharon’s corner was riling you up.

You made a sound that was definitely some sort of growl and threw your hands up.

“Why can’t they just shut up?” Steve smiled mischievously.

“You doing okay there?” You glared at Steve

“What do you think? Barnes is basically throwing himself at Sharon. it’s so distracting.”

“You know what it sounds like to me?” The blonde man beside you asked.

“What?”

“It sounds like someone’s jealous,” Steve whispered. You could physically hear the grin in his voice.

“I really want to hit you right now,” You threatened.

“That’s not a no!” he sang.

“I’m NOT jealous! Why would I ever want Bucky Barnes to flirt with me? I’d honestly rather die,” You denied.

Steve looked at you skeptically.

“Whatever you say.” He went back to his sketches. You huffed and ultimately did this same. 

You did NOT like Bucky Barnes. But as you looked back towards the playboy brunette talking with Sharon, you felt an ache of envy that he wasn’t talking to you. 

I do NOT like Bucky Barnes, you repeated to yourself. But a little part of you knew that wasn’t true. You put your head in your hands.

Well fuckity, fuck, fuck.

so that was part one! it’ll get more dramatic soon! this is my first series so i’m still trying to figure some things out. if anyone has tips please let me know! sorry for any grammatical errors. thanks for reading :)

series masterlist~part 2