how do you feel like youre making progress?

[infernal.serval]

I have been thinking about this more recently both with the turn of the new year in the US and because I've gotten a small injury and have needed to be resting for the past few days.

I feel like I am continuously being put off my art. I'm either busy and exhausted, or letting myself get distracted. I want to improve and have been studying, trying to hit my weak points one by one, but I feel like I'm just pushing the boulder up the hill over and over again.

I'm getting visibly better at my art, but I don't really feel like I have much to show for it besides piles of sketches. There are opportunities in my area to share my art, but I either don't feel confident enough, or like I have a big enough portfolio. I don't have any series of work, because my attention has been so scattered.

I've tried to make a spreadsheet, lists, plans, etc. I've started journaling about it. I still feel like even if I become technically skilled enough, I'm just going to be stuck in a cycle of never making anything of actual substance because it feels too overwhelming to start. It's not the planning process that is the issue, its the fear that I'm never going to finish anything in the end.

I made myself stop caring about progress for the last year or so, because I needed to unlearn and relearn a lot about why I make art and to build a healthier relationship with it. But now that I want to do it again, I don't know how to keep track of everything. I always feel so stagnant with my art. I don't have a lot of artist friends, and most of them work in different mediums. Even though I never mind when they show off their work, I always feel like I'm doing something wrong by showing mine. I feel like there's something stopping me from engaging with my art with others, as if I'm somehow not allowed to. So I always end up hovering around the edges of art communities and never reaching out. It feels very lonely.

I just feel like I'm throwing pieces of myself into the void forever.

[Corrupted Unicorn]

Ooooh, I think I have experiences and strategies to share about this 

I'm pretty much like you right now, getting better at art but only having a pile of sketches to show for it. My mind is also very scattered and likes to jump from project to project, from idea to idea, the same way a squirrel jumps from tree branch to tree branch.

Just about recently I figured out things that work for me. I'll share them, in hopes if not all at least some of them work for you too 

For me, it's very important to visualize progress. I can't ask to my mind to keep track of how many days have I been doing X on top of everything else it does!  I tried journalling about it, but for me it didn't work because I don't tend to read my past journal entries. I read that the key to many things is to make them very obvious and simple

So I began putting post-its on my walls. One post-it stating the habit I am trying to form, and next to it I add a post-it everyday if I accomplish the task related to the habit: kinda like a progress bar in a videogame  These post-its are blank, easy to take down and interchange.

The key to this is to start small. If what you want is to read more, read one page a day. If, in my case, I want to animate, the bare minimum is always one frame. For "static" art, it could be one "step" of the process (sketch-lineart-flat colors-rendering-backgrounds-etc...). This doesn't mean you are limited to just "one", you can always do more if you feel like it  But at least for me, this works, because
1- Once I get around to doing one I end up in the same state of mind that makes me want to keep at it, and instead of just one frame I end up doing a good chunk of the animation
2. If it's one of those days where you aren't feeling as proactive (specially taking into account you're recovering from injury!), one is enough to earn you that one post-it, that one point in the progress bar.

If you manage two weeks in a row (14 post-its), you can crank the lever a little higher: two pages. Two frames. Two steps of the art-making process.
If you skip a day, you take down all the "progress-bar" post-its and start again. It was a bit hard for me to do this when it happened to me, but it was good because I understood it didn't mean I failed. It meant I'm not ready to take it "to the next level" just yet.

 If you try to start big and do a lot in too little time with no flexibility, you're setting yourself up for disappointment. Or at least, that's my experience and I hope I'm not the only one  . But if you start this small, you slowly convince yourself that you can do stuff consistently, and you're achieving things along the way 

This is something I adopted about last month, and I think it's my best "system" to get myself to do things so far. I'm two thirds/halfway into my animation project thanks to it, among other good habits  It's cheap and it won't ruin your walls 

I have other systems that compliment this one, such as rewarding myself by playing little bits of videogames as a reward (more about that here) and gamifying the habits as well (when I mean "level up", i kinda mean it like a game, I have also a little creature drawn on each "habit post-it" that I draw "evolutions" on everytime I get two weeks in a row on that specific habit)

I don't know if this is the kind of answer you expected, but I hope it helps! I'm very passionate about self-improvement and I like sharing my strategies in hopes it helps other people, as well 

[kringle]

first off, i like to say that if you're feeling really shitty abt your art it prob means your close to a lvl up, your eye(how you see art) will develop faster than your hand(how you make art) so often you'll be seeing flaws in your art that your JUST on the cusp of being able to fix.



like @Corrupted Unicorn is saying habit building is a really important! it's honestly like, 75% of it if i'm being honest.

dividing things into small managable chunks is super important but something that i'd like to add tho is aside from task based goals it's also good to have time based goals. like maybe gesture drawing for an hour, or sitting down and doing a color study for half an hour. usually when i give myself homework i try to schedule it out in 30 minute blocks, it's a habit i got from an art community i was really active in after highscool. it's unfortunately just maths that the more time you're able to put into your craft the better you'll be able to get at it, so i find that if i'm able to make at least an hour in the day for my art it makes me feel a lot better abt my practice

and i know it feels awkward but you really should try to find community!! ones that form around monthly challenges(edit: like inktober, mermay, and huevember) are a great place to start, and i know in another thread someone said crimson daggers is still up and running, and if you don't mind using discord the lightbox one has a lot of great free workshops. obviously here @ melonland seems like a great place to make art friends, but it's true it doesn't have the like, competitive fighting spirit i'm used to seeing in art improvement communities. for me i've had my most improvement when i've had friends of a similar skill level who (quite literally) challenge me to do things.

like i'm not even joking we'd do like, art gauntlets

as for in the real world you should try finding your local urban sketchers chapter! theres also (hopefully) local art scenes you could join but i myself also get shy trying to get into those scenes, so i totally get it 

i'm sure you yourself know that the hesitance to share ur art is something you need to conquer, all i can really say is that the sooner your able the closer you'll be to finding people in the same spot u are. like it sounds fake when ppl say it but it's true as long as you put yourself out there & be friendly your people will find you.

I feel you on not having a big enough portfolio, for me i'd really love to get into either comics or visual development (maybe storyboarding? but i've got like NOTHING for that atm) but my example work for that is very small. alas the temptation to sit down and make fanart for a few hours is very strong in me.

maybe we could hold eachother accountable on making a big project! big project buddies!!!

[infernal.serval]

Ty I really appreciate the advice. I will look into Crimson Daggers and Urban Sketchers.

[Nerril]

I know I've been struggling with this especially hard the last few years. I've been in and out of cycles where I just can't get anything out right, or just nothing comes out. Or all the stuff I'm studying doesn't seem to be paying off.

If it's gotten bad enough to the point where I'm stressed about it, one of the things I'll do is take a hard "vacation". Set a timeframe (usually a couple days to a week or so) where I do NOT study or practice just for the sake of bettering myself. I only draw if I want to, and I only draw stuff for myself. When I'm having a hard time with that too, like my personal doodles are even ticking me off, I've actually found that switching mediums can help a LOT. Changing mediums to play around in can even show you skills you didn't know you had, or can sometimes showcase the things you've been learning in different ways, so that you CAN actually see how you've learned. I recently picked up painting, well, kinda forced myself too after avoiding/being intimidated by it for so long. And woooo boy am I a baby and still learning. But it's actually shown me that I have a better grasp of certain skills than I though, since I'm seeing it through a different lens.

Have you ever watched the movie Kiki's Delivery Service? It covers this exact thing, and it's turned into my comfort movie when I feel stuck like this.