#decentlife

1. Have good tools that you enjoy using. (yes, you are good enough to use the good paper. it makes a difference, and the development of your talent deserves it. also, make sure you’re using the media you like or you want to be using (pen, pencil, charcoal, whatever). Practice with them and see how many different kinds of marks you can make with them, those marks are your drawing tools. Make sure your reference, if you’re sketching from one, is the one you really want to draw from. And make sure it is a high enough quality one with interesting features).

2. Suit your drawing to your paper size (see @khorazir and @milkchaos ‘s art tags, they are really good at it, i think.) or, make it so you can crop it as needed, I have to do that sometimes.

3. Don’t get caught up in one spot, keep your pencil (or whatever) moving. Most teachers recommend working up all areas of your drawing at once, to help with proportion and an overall feeling of unity in the piece. (If you have a hard time with this, instead start with your favorite thing, and force yourself to work away from it and come back to it. I always start with the eyes on a portrait because it’s my favorite).

4. Take breaks, and/or view your piece from a distance. It’ll help you see mistakes.

5. If your proportions are off or something looks wrong, turn the reference and your piece upside down, and work that way for a bit. Or, look at your drawing in a mirror. Measure distances and angles by eyeballing, or with a ruler. Look as much as you draw.

6. Cultivate some level of unattachedness to your drawings, so you can easily dump them and start again if it gets messed up. If this is hard, try this exercise.. pick something you want to draw, and do 10 timed 5-minute (or even 2-minute) drawings of it, trying to get at least all of the thing on the page, even if it looks crappy. Pick your favorite of them and compliment yourself. Look at them for patterns of your strengths/areas of improvement. Repeat as needed. 

7. If it’s not working, try different paper/materials/reference. Try drawing in a different room/place. Play music you like. Be gentle with yourself and give yourself rewards.