#tbh between go and me getting fed up w some content that i constantly see like half my dash is filtered rn

[just-about-nothing]

tumblr’s filtering features r probably some of the best of the social internet but i am especially enamored of the fact you can filter out users via the text filtering feature. e.g if someone didn’t want to see my posts but also didn’t want to block me (or doesn’t want to see me as part of a longer post) they could add the phrase ‘just-about-nothing’ to their filtered phrases and badda bing badda boom! gone!

[iraprince]

do u have any advice for forcing past 50 layers of self loathing in order to work on practicing art? i know i gotta Just Do It to get better and i've gotten a lot better in the past few months thru consistent practice!! but some days i sit down to do it and immediately get hit with a feeling of You Will Never Be Good Enough And That Makes You A Bad Person that i really struggle to get past :/ i rly resonate w your posts about mental illness/health so i thought i'd ask! hope you have a good week!

it’s hard! it’s fucking hard. it takes constant daily practice -- not just at art but practice at being kind to yourself -- and it takes a long time, at least in my experience.

the first and most important thing, which you’ve probably already heard a billion times and are sick of hearing bc it’s so much easier said than done, is to try your best to stop comparing yourself to others. constantly holding yourself up to artists who are more technically adept/more polished than yourself will poison ur heart and brain and make it so, so much harder for u to focus on ur own craft. if you really, REALLY can’t turn that comparison/jealousy/stress into inspiration rn, it may mean you just have to actually limit the amount of time u spend looking at work that creates that ache in you, yknow? and so the flip side of this advice is another piece of advice i’ve given before, which is that u should surround yourself w people who are kind of roughly in the same “stage” of their creative journey as u. connect w other artists who are struggling w their confidence, other artists who don’t have much of an audience, other artists who are still trying to get their technical level to where they want it -- people who are going through stuff you relate to personally, instead of just following artists who you feel are already “way better” than u so all u feel when u look at their stuff is “my stuff will never look like that.” if u already do, that’s fantastic! lean into your interactions w them, learn from each other, and remind yourself constantly that FAR more people are in your boat (where we all have stuff artwise that we’re insecure about and we’re all trying really hard to get better and get our stuff out there) vs like, the amount of artists who are just “Good Enough!” and have settled there and are just chillin is comparatively very very small. MOST people feel exactly the way you do.

i also have a thread i wrote on twitter about how to deal with and work around the discouragement of not being technically skilled enough to draw what’s in your head. tldr: while you are in stages where you’re not happy with your skill level (which are feelings that will fade, and then come back, over and over again, for as long as you draw), instead of giving up, try to be realistic AND proactive and change the internal monologue from “i’m not good enough to draw this :(” to “okay. i’ll just frustrate myself if i keep trying to draw plan A. what’s a plan B that’s more realistic with my skill level?”

another thing it took me forever to learn is that everything doesn’t have to be posted. a lot of times a piece i was in the middle of wouldn’t actually be AWFUL, but it wouldn’t be “good enough to post,” so i’d convince myself i hated it. i spent ages thinking of every single drawing i ever made in terms of “is this polished enough to post, if i post this will anyone like/retweet/reblog this, will this make me look like i’m shitty at drawing if i post it,” blah blah blah blah blah, and finally realizing that u can just. MAKE drawings that aren’t that good, and nobody EVER has to see them if u don’t want them to and that doesn’t mean the drawing was a waste of time, was a revelation for me tbh. and i still struggle w feeling like any drawing that i don’t post and get validation on is a “waste” or like, pointless, but i’m training myself out of that and it helps a lot. sort of connected to this, try your BEST not to scrap drawings halfway through when you don’t like how they’re coming out. really really try to push through and finish crappy drawings. nobody has to know, and you’ll progress faster by making yourself finish things instead of giving up on a string of a dozen half-drawn heads.

aaaaaand finally: when drawing stops being fun and starts being something you’re torturing yourself with, maybe it’s time to go do something else for a while. like, i think utilizing this advice effectively requires having a really honest and realistic self-dialogue, bc literally the last thing i said before this was “make yourself do things you don’t want to do” and i don’t want this advice to turn into “well every single time i get frustrated that means it’s time to give up on practice for the day,” obviously. but i mean there IS a line between gritting your teeth and pushing through dull/embarrassing/just not super fun practice for the greater good, vs torturing yourself banging your head against a wall for hours at something that’s not making you happy. sometimes if you hit a plateau or you just can’t find any joy or contentment in trying that just means you’re creatively depleted. you need to rest and go soak in some inspiration and just get away from your tablet/sketchbook for a while and that’s so normal. besides, you’re already doing fine: from the way you phrase this, you HAVE been consistently practicing, and it’s just that some days you’re tired and fed up and you can’t do it. there’s nothing weird about that! that’s how everyone is! so, you know: work hard, play hard, but be nice to yourself and cut yourself a little more slack. you’ll get there and it’s not a race.