How Old Were You When You Started Drawing?

I believe I was around 6 or 7 years old when I just started to get into drawing, but wouldn’t become as consistent with it until I was around 10-11 years old. I’d say I was about 12 to 13 years old when I decided to take art more “seriously” by watching a lot of YouTube tutorials videos breaking down certain subjects or fundamentals of art. Although I would typically just do my own thing most of the time anyway so idk lol. By that point I had fully decided that art was what I wanted to do in life and so I’ve drawn almost everyday since then. However when I say this don’t think I’m like, on the grind always as most days this means doodling/sketching for about five minutes a day lol.

Ever since I made that decision arts been a very rocky journey of self doubt and self loathing, mostly during my insecure and unwell teenage years. These days I’ve come to be more at peace with my art skills, although that’s not to say I never have art downer days or months (as I’m currently experiencing the WORST art block/burn out atm due to my college art course). But overall I’ve had considerably less “oh my art is so bad and I’ll never be as good as these other people who are younger and better than me”, and a large part of that was me learning to enioy the process of making art regardless of where my skill set was at, and to stop comparing myself to others as well. (As well as improving my own mental health too obviously)

It was a long and difficult process to get to where I am with how I feel about my art now though. As much as I hated my art back then, I kept going because art is just a part of who I am at this point, and to not make art is to not be myself. And well, wouldn’t you know, I got better because I kept at it, kept learning, studying, and having fun. Even if I am a slow learner and a serial procrastinator, my art still got better, slowly, but surely, and now I’m at a point where I can enjoy looking at my own creations despite all of their many flaws. There will always be time to improve upon your skills, and there’s never a stage where you stop learning either. I always find it the most motivating to look back at some of my older artworks and compare them to my newer ones to see how far I’ve come, but also to see where I might still be struggling too, but without the harsh and unfair judgment.

I wholeheartedly agree with the reply left by Hikatamika that it is never too late to start learning art and that this idea that you have to be at a certain skill level depending on your age is a stupid social construct that doesn’t even reflect reality anyway. Saying this as someone who, at 13-16 years old, was definitely not the best artist of her age, but who still made art that I was proud and happy of regardless.