#oops. oops ok diana this is the part where you should stop getting your hopes up | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

britneyshakespeare · 11 months ago

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The reason charcoal is superior to graphite is because it's the more tactile medium. I mean when it comes to blending volume into shapes and feeling outlines it's literally hands-on (if you want it to be... and I do). If I go over with a graphite pencil an eye or a nose or a mouth or a forehead a million times, it looks like complete shit. If I do in with charcoal, it still looks like complete shit but it IS progress, AND it's more forgiving. The parts of it that look a mess will be more easily hidden once the technical details are figured out. So you can have a great start look like complete shit and have it not be at all discouraging, when holy crap if I made this mess on a piece of paper with graphite I'd be weeping about how hopeless it is.

I love drawing in charcoal because when you're in the beginning of a work, instead of looking like something reasonable it's perfectly acceptable and natural for them to look like this

#why am i feeling hope about this drawing. why.#cont #maybe i should discourage myself. i dont want to do any more work on it tonight #it's also been awhile since i did a self-portrait. the last one i did was a month and a half ago #and it was just contour lines in pencil so i didn't spend too long on it. and i was happy w how it came out!#but it's still. JUST contour lines.#i havent drawn *myself* in charcoal since last march. and ive only done so many fully-shaded self-portraits #actually i think ive only done 2 ever lol. and neither of them was i particularly satisfied with.#oops. oops ok diana this is the part where you should stop getting your hopes up #no i actually think even if i have been drawing less (although ive been on the upswing again recently but just generally)#(since i finished my figure drawing class in late 2022 i havent been able to keep up w my visual art as much)#i actually think my skills have not deteriorated? i even think some of the work ive been making recently is... better?#than it was while i was taking figure drawing?#or. i dont know. maybe just the amount of stress i was under while i was taking that class wasnt conducive #to producing my best work as opposed to if i had taken it in a time that was better for my mental health.#whereas now im not doing anything for assignments but just following my muse wherever it takes me. idk #it's still hard to draw but it doesn't make me wanna die. i only suffer for my art a little bit

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