#but srsly i watched myself improve significantly the second i drew more

[purplepixel]

if you could give one tip to an amateur artist (aka not complete newbie but not great either), what would it be?

I could talk about using references, drawing from life, breaking down what you see into shapes, having someone critique your work etc etc, but i think the biggest tip regardless of level is

Just keep drawing

Its stupid simple, but there are so many factors that prohibit people from doing this.

Theres perfectionism, fear of failure, discouragement from not being at the level you want to be, being overwhelmed by life, the list goes on.

But the simple action of consistently doing something is the foundation for improvement. Even if you dont notice at the time. The hard part is developing a mindset that allows consistency. And this is where a lot of the "just draw" advice people give falls apart. I am not telling anyone to draw once per day (unless thats something that works for you). My tip is to find the thing thats stopping you from drawing and solve that in order to find the motivation to keep drawing. Because once you do that, then everything else will fall into place.

There is no one size fits all, but i think an important mentality to have is to treat your art journey as an endless game of levelling up. You can only ever gain more experience. So for every bad drawing you make, you still walk away learning something. This is especially helpful for people that suffer from perfectionism or are dissatisfied with their art. Trust the process and trust yourself. Even if your art doesnt look the way you want it to now, by continuing to learn and practice the thing you want to get good at, you eventually will reach the level you want.

And perhaps, anon, you are someone who already is drawing consistently. Then all i have to say to you, is that youre on the right track and all you need is to have faith that you will continue to improve if you chose to keep drawing consistently.

Ive actually had the pleasure of witnessing two of my friends start their artistic journey from almost ground 0 and watched their art improve significantly in months. Both come from a non art school background and had no formal training. The one common thing they have is that they started to draw more.