Two years ago I had these pictures on display in a youth exhibition. The exhibition is biennial and starts again in a few days (Youthscape, check it out).

I’ve been feeling pretty good about my art over the last weeks, but the anxiety that I’m not improving is a regular one nonetheless. 

Keeping in mind that I was super proud of these pieces and they were definitely the best that I could do at the time, here are some ways I’ve improved in the last 2 years:

 – I can draw hands now. Not perfectly and I still find them difficult and slow but I can definitely draw them and I do. I’m also a lot better at drawing figures in general, in a huge variety of poses and movements.

 – Control. I spent aaaages drawing these lines and shapes and was eternally frustrated by how they never looked that good anyway.

 – Colour. Some of the colour weirdness here can be attributed to the laptop screen I was working on but not all of it.

 – Consistency. You can’t see it here but let me guarantee that I could not have drawn these characters in another pose so they still looked good.

 – I can work a lot quicker now. I don’t know how many hours I spent on that bottom picture but yeah wow it was so many. So many.

Other thoughts:

I like lineless art. I always have. I like to use lines to denote texture rather than outlines. I like when my art has details even though I often neglect to add them. My faces still look remarkably similar even though I’m much better at drawing them now.

I still really like that top picture (other than a few minor issues). I took it straight out of my sketchbook and coloured over the top without putting too much pressure on it. That’s a common thing for my favourite pieces. Regular reminder that drawing in your sketchbook is useful and so is creating work for no purpose.