How Old Were You When You Started Drawing?

[moeghost]

recently i've started to feel like im "too old" to begin my art journey, even tho im only 18... i've been drawing since i was 13, but i never really took it seriously until about a year ago. i feel like i've finally found my style, but i get too embarrassed to share my art with the world since i feel like my art is a bit childish/underdeveloped for my age or at least for how long ive been drawing.

i see a lot of younger people on the internet who were around the same age i was when i started drawing, but their skills and understanding of anatomy and color theory are much better than mine...

im of the belief that its never too late, you can never be too old for anything that makes you happy, i guess i just wish id took myself seriously a bit earlier, maybe my skills would have progressed more and id have more to show for.

if any of you are willing, id love to see or hear about how your skills and confidence in your art has developed 

thank u all for the insightful replies!! its nice to hear everyones thoughts and experiences with their art and thank u to those who gave advice :) its been interesting reading about everyones different journeys

[AnIzzi0t]

personally, I started drawing when I was around 10! I specifically remember sitting in my 4th grade classroom drawing a manga character(I started with how to draw manga books) and my teacher saw what I was drawing and threw it away

nevertheless, I persisted!! I made a series of comics illustrating my 11th birthday (where my dad set it on fire. ooopppssss....) and looking back, they aren't as bad as I remember them! so that rekindled my love for silly doodles and comics

when I was 11, my oc ideas also started flowing in!! that's the age where my main ocs, Trudy and kia, came into concept!

you are never too old to start drawing. in fact, in my friend group I came pretty late. but that just means you'll have to learn and understand how you want your art to turn out. you cant control when you begin, but you can control when you end

[flowerrobin]

I've been drawing since I can remember so around age 3, but I didn't start to take it seriously until recently when I went to university. I am of that Deviantart generation that posted MS Paint how-to-draw manga style art and I thought I had developed my unique 'style' and my art was the bomb, until I got to my late 20s and realised I actually knew very little about art and basically had to restart from scratch.

My advice is to not overthink it or compare yourself to others - it's probably the most common pitfall for young artists, especially nowadays where you're exposed to these cool artists with a bajillion followers on Instagram. You don't have to draw like them or even have a social media following to be successful - another thing I didn't know until going to university was that there are so many different fields out there for art, and you don't have to limit yourself to being a comic artist/animator working for Disney which tend to be the jobs most glamorised online. For years I thought I wanted to be an animator because all the artists I liked were, but I'm glad I realised that I'm not cut out for it and I wouldn't like the work anyway.

Also focus on finding your own voice rather than style - do it this way and your work will look distinctly yours, you will find yourself drawing this way naturally like it's your handwriting and not burn out. Make an effort to research all kinds of art, from different cultures and different periods of history to understand that there's a million different ways of approaching art and there is no one 'right' way to go about things, and that there is value in everything. Doing this has set me free and now I feel the most confident I've ever been with my art!

[lakes]

I don't remember actually. But I didn't start doing it regularly until I was a preteen I think. Now I don't really do it as regularly as then. But I still draw sometimes.

[ValyceNegative]

As a hobby? Since I could hold a tool! I learned how to write earlier than usual and drawing came soon after. However, I started considering art as a proper career only around 15 years old. That's when I started showing my stuff to people (my age or older) and the majority of responses were along the lines of "I wanna see more" or "you could make these as a living!«

[hikatamika]

• Literally: Since childhood for pure enjoyment.
• More focused hobbyism? — Maybe since late elementary through middle school.
• Online/social hobbyism (with my friends): Since the age of like ~12-13.
• Online/social hobbyism (with the greater internet. Curse you, likes and retweets): Probably mid/late-teens?
• Online w/ content creator mindset: I wanna say… since graduating uni.
• Burnt out on content creator stuff, trying to do art for self-actualization and personal fulfillment: Now.

My top recommendation is to ignore the (and I say this endearingly:) prodigy art fetuses online. Don't regret time spent not drawing because other people are ahead of you. The time spent not drawing due to inhibitions will pass anyway, and we don't live forever. Tons of people pick up art in their teens, and young-, mid-, and even senior-adulthood. I also find that the older a new artist is, the less likely they'll engage in the most trending art mediums and seek social approval. Random grandmas are just picking up landscape acrylic paintings cause they find them pretty, y'know? But I feel like teens→30s worry about being like… digital artists that make people go "wow" when they scroll or surf to their art.

If Pewdiepie (regardless of how I feel about him) is allowed to be an Adult Beginner Artist, and have art that looks "underdeveloped for his age", why can't you? (I mean that kindly and genuinely.) I think the idea of an Appropriate Level of Art Skill for Someone's Age is a social construct to avoid. Like, it's not real. Who said "5yos must draw like this. 10yos must draw like this. 15 yos must draw like this—"? It's all made up. At any age, one's art will look like the level at which they trained their observation-stylization-and execution skills—be that 15 or 50.

Like, if you were the only person on earth, would you feel as worried as you do now? You deserve to feel happy, confident, and pursue what you want.


To talk about my experience, as requested… Lowkey, skill-wise, I just got better at it the more I drew. The more I drew, the more I'd have a desire to do better in the next drawing in certain aspects, which gave me things to pursue improvement on. Confidence-wise, I was ironically more confident the (quote-unquote) WORSE I was at drawing. Because back then, my brain was more focused on enjoyment of the process, expressing myself, and sharing things with friends who already liked me (for non-art reasons) anyway. When the Social Web, and the User Experience/psychological design of Social Media got a grip on my art, I was already "much better" at art skills wise, but my confidence has been tremendously worse than when I was an amateur/new/developing/n00b artist.

It really makes ya think, I swear…

There's a human instinct to leave proof of your own existence. To achieve immortality by leaving your painted handprint on the cave wall. To me, that's what art is. Focus on that part! 

Edit: typos everywhere
Edit: addendum cause I just thought of it and it sounds cool:

If art and the human instinct are leaving proof of our own existence by leaving handprints on the cave wall, like, there's no point in fretting that someone else's handprint is better than yours. Your handprint is in YOUR shape. It reflects and expresses you.

[devils]

I've been drawing since I was 2, when I learned how to hold a pen properly, when I say I haven't stopped since I am speaking quite literally because I need to draw everyday otherwise I'll feel crazy.

My art's gone through ups and downs according to my mental health and whatnot. Right now I'm pretty pleased with how it looks. I quite dislike the idea that you have to start at a certain age to be good at it. I've seen complete beginners with an excellent eye for a myriad of things, from anatomy to colors, and starting as an older person allows you to draw with more intent than as a kid, making it so learning basic skills is easier. It's all a matter of perspective, really...

[varve]

recently i've started to feel like im "too old" to begin my art journey, even tho im only 18... i've been drawing since i was 13, but i never really took it seriously until about a year ago.

Since everyone else seems to have started even younger than you, here's me.

I started drawing when I was 40.

Before that I'd thought drawing was something only 'talented' people could do, despite a few drawing assignments in school that I pretty much always hated.

So you know... you're never too old :)

[Pixelverse48]

I've been drawing since elementary school but took it more seriously during the pandemic.

[⋆DizzyLizz⋆]

I Started drawing in 2nd grade mostly just stick figures and stuff, then i started making like captain underpants fan comics in 4th and 5th grade when i was like ten. And got a bit more serious with practicing more often and improving in 7th grade because i didn't really have much else to do during the covid Lockdowns.

[Zero Kirby]

I've been drawing since I could remember - this'll probably sound pretty dumb, but a big inspiration were the Captain Underpants books. The main characters, George and Harold, were kids who drew comic books all the time and I thought that was super cool, so I also started drawing comic books. I definitely feel like I'm not "as good" an artist today as I could've been if I took it a lot more seriously as I got older, since I always wanted to "skip the boring steps," but I'm also not sure I'd be an artist at all if it weren't for those silly books with silly drawings.

[moeghost]

If Pewdiepie (regardless of how I feel about him) is allowed to be an Adult Beginner Artist, and have art that looks "underdeveloped for his age", why can't you?

this is exactly the type of reply i was looking for, very detailed and i appreaciate the amount of personal thoughts and experiences    

i actually think about that pewdiepie video a lot, i've never had the most positive opinion of him myself but he did help to remind me that you can start drawing whenever you want, and as long as you have the drive, you can always improve and gain any skill. especially considering he was pretty decent after just a month haha. whenever i feel insecure about starting to take my art seriously later than most others, i think of that video. even if he wasnt as serious as i am.. i do wish i had the same motivation to draw every day for 30 days straight tho

I've been drawing since I was 2, when I learned how to hold a pen properly, when I say I haven't stopped since I am speaking quite literally because I need to draw everyday otherwise I'll feel crazy.

since u were two ?? :0 out of curiosity, when would you say you became "good" or at least confident in your skills?

[hikatamika]

…then i started making like captain underpants fan comics in 4th and 5th grade when i was like ten.

…this'll probably sound pretty dumb, but a big inspiration were the Captain Underpants books. The main characters, George and Harold, were kids who drew comic books all the time and I thought that was super cool, so I also started drawing comic books.

My fellow students of George and Harold from Captain Underpants…  The way George and Harold drew, copied, and stapled comics made comics as an activity so accessible to me as a kid. I'm super happy the author, Dav Pilkey, is still making books for children. Now my younger cousins are fans of his work too! 

[voltdrake]

I think it's important to not worry too much about "what-ifs" when it comes to these things. You gotta work with what you have now; you started taking this more seriously a year ago instead of 5 years ago, and that's OK. If you let that feeling stop you now, you're gonna regret it later on again.

i do wish i had the same motivation to draw every day for 30 days straight tho

I'd say don't worry about that. Plenty of us have been there, I think. Drawing everyday is honestly really difficult (you've seen how people talk about those themed month art challenges yeah?), and for some people forcing it every day can be quite bad. Overall consistency is more important than drawing everyday specifically.
As for personal experiences, I started drawing as a proper hobby when I was 11 (for reference, I'm currently in my 20s). I was really into Five Nights at Freddy's at the time  and that was basically the only thing I drew for a while. Nothing really gets you to draw consistently as much as "I love this thing so much!"

Can't talk too much about confidence because I've always felt neutral to bad about my art depending on the time period. A lot of bad feeling came from "oh no one's interacting with my art" though, which I still have to deal with. But right now, I think my art's OK, and that's good enough for me confidence wise.

[devils]

since u were two ?? :0 out of curiosity, when would you say you became "good" or at least confident in your skills?

Yeah, I learned how to hold a pen at that age since I wanted to write and it just kind of came naturally- obviously my drawings weren't anything super amazing, but seeing old art I had at least some degree of knowledge of anatomy, such as how many fingers are on each hand and whatnot.

My confidence in regards to my art wavered for a hot minute. For a long time I compared myself to others, especially when I was mostly catatonic and on heavy medication- my art skills weren't bad in retrospect, but they felt worse because I was so sick (I am schizophrenic).

For reference, this was my art in 2012 (I was 14), when I got diagnosed:

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My art from 2016 (18 years old) is considerably less detailed:

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Nowadays, I'm pretty confident in my skills. I've come to accept them despite knowing they're not the best out there, mostly because I stopped comparing myself to others. Here's some stuff from the past few days:

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