On Trying To Get Back Into Drawing Again

I’ve been trying to get back into drawing again. Now I’m more settled down in my life, I have the ability to find my pens and pencils and actually sit down and draw stuff. But doing so has been more… frustrating than I’d like. I’m supposed to be actually good at art and things like that, but lately, I’m really just not feeling it.

A small problem is, well, I’ve had to get new pens and pencils and sketch books. Most of my sketch books and pens seemingly disappeared during the move, and I never got around to getting new ones. I’ve recently been drawing on standard printer paper, but I did find an A4 drawing pad. However, I prefer smaller drawing pads, preferably A5, because, well, I draw small. I’ve also lost my favourite black pen that I normally use for doing outlines. There are a couple of black pens I can use instead, but it’s not the saaaame!

I’ve also realized I’ve become very rusty. My first foray into drawing again came out hideous. Okay, sure, I was drawing in the dark (my favourite place to draw) and everything was just coming out shit. Even with guidelines, my drawings were coming out misshapen and weird, and none of the limbs were the right size. I broke my pencil twice and my attempts at something that even remotely looked like fingers ended up in complete failure. While I did eventually draw something that resembled some sort of creature, it was very frustrating.

Since then, I have been drawing more, but none of it has been particularly serious. It’s all just been pencil scribbles, no black outlines or anything like I used to. I’ve instead been doing thick lines in pencil and attempting to shade in, but I’ve not been happy with the results. Drawing just doesn’t come to me as well as it used to, and I’m spending way, way longer per image, just to reach a level similar to my drawings in the past. I don’t feel like I’m really improving either, I’m just kinda flustered and not getting anywhere.

As to what inspired me to get back into drawing? Well, it definitely wasn’t a desire to find a new way to relax. I haven’t found drawing relaxing in a long, long time, especially since my work also features a lot of drawing. But lately, I’ve wanted to get back into writing fiction again, and part of that includes redesigning some of my main characters. I’m hoping to revamp my Phoviverse (this would probably be Phoviverse version 5.0) and this means redesigning some of the characters and species, making them more individual, but also simplifying them, making them stand out more. Have I gotten very far with this? Not really.

But getting back into drawing has been rough. I’ve not been happy with any of my results so far. Still, I can’t just give up, I have to keep on going. It’s a good skill to have, to be able to draw free-hand, and I really shouldn’t have let myself get rusty in the first place. All I can do though is keep on drawing, and slowly, hopefully, I’ll improve.