It’s almost too easy too associate our value with our success, based on whatever metric we determine (likes, comments, whatever), and I feel like we have a culture where we shouldn’t appreciate experiments that went wrong, or things that failed.
I feel like we put so much pressure on ourselves that we forget that we’re all human, and we all go through the same struggles, we all have moments where we feel we’re not good enough.
To counteract that, show some work that you’re really not proud of. It can be objectively bad (to you), or even unfinished and stuck in that limbo forever.
To start, I’ll put out some quick sketches that were so bad I literally named this file “crappy.png”
I wouldn’t call these crap. In fact I wouldn’t call any art crap . My teacher told me that there is no such thing as bad art, there is only good and better art. These may seem crap to you but these are one of the formative steps that lead you towards your goal. So they are in fact very much important.
Absolutely, and if I look at some of the pieces I made a while back, like 4 or 5 years ago, I did a lot of “worse” art, compared to what I do now!
But it’s so easy to go down that slippery slope… To me all it takes is just watching someone who produces beautiful art, and that jealous, lacking self confidence parts of me just rise up, with a mission to determine my value as being inferior.
Don’t get me wrong, it’s important to stay critical of your art, but I think it’s important to acknowledge that the outcome of some brush strokes does not make you any better or worse as a living being.
I find a little rude. What is a failure for you might be something that someone else admires. It’s always to what you value as good or success. You’re always biased to your own work.
All my art that I did previously is bad (in my eyes) but the thing is I learned something. I try to ignore it and try keep having fun.
Once you struggle, that’s the point you keep doing. We all have scribbles we value as failure but those are the most important.
I sometimes save a pic every hour and after look at them and am always surprized at the leap I took. I thought it’s cool 2 hours ago, but what did I know.
I don’t know how I was being rude, could you explain a little more on that? If I was rude, I meant no disrespect
I think we all view our own art in the worst light, and the whole point of this thread was to highlight what to you might be bad, might be great to others. It reminds us that it’s ok that a certain painting might not look that great, because we all go through it, and most of the times before a painting is “finished”, it can sometimes look not that great.
I totally agree with that, I even like the snapshot docker just for that singular purpose! It’s a pity that it doesn’t store that information in the .kra file, because I would like to know how things evolve session after session
Although I agree that it could be discouraging for beginners, seeing a “bad” sketch that is in their eyes better than what they can do at the moment, It could be a great exercise to not compare yourself too much to other artist in terms of skill and don’t get too emotional about when you have a bad day at drawing.
Unfortunately I throw away most of my sketches that fall in the “not good enough” category but here are two that I could find.
Thanks for sharing, I know it can be a bit daunting! And to be honest, I really like both your sketches I rarely draw animals, so when I do I suck at it, so to my untrained eye, they look great!
Agree, that’s besides the entire point of the thread
My example of the worst paintings/sketches in the last few months… The first one is me trying to paint without reference, the second one was me trying to fix the first one. Without reference.
This is my (WIP of) last painting with reference, although still without any thought of keeping structure of the face correct, so eyes are way too small and she in general looks a bit alienish, but I guess you see a difference (I hope I will be able to fix the proportions and I hope that practicing painting with references will allow me to paint this kind of stuff even without )
Wow, the difference between the top one and the bottom one is night and day!
And I totally get what you mean about the overall proportions of the face, I struggle with that too. Hell, I’m currently struggling with that for my next piece!
Drawing without reference for a face would quite the dream, but when I see even top artists like Ross Draws so regularly using reference, I start to wonder whether that is a realistic, or even a desired goal. Maybe our memory will never be good enough!
I think it’s a bad idea to show your reject art, besides who wants to look at it? An artist should cultivate the practice of curating their own work and only showing stuff they consider represents them best. That’s like one of the most valuable tricks everyone should learn, don’t just put up any old thing you happen to be working on, especially online where it lives forever. Think of the brilliant photographer, do you think every shot they’ve taken of the subject is as good as the one single image that gets chosen for the magazine cover? Or the DVD extras where they show the scenes that didn’t make the final cut. Why? Those scenes suck because they don’t belong in the movie and on their own are meaningless and if they had been left in they would have contaminated the film.
Please, don’t start thinking it’s a caring sharing thing to be showing your worst work, it’s not, because just by default we are often doing it anyway as we post things while we develop, so it not something that needs to be encouraged. It’s just my opinion but personally it took me a long time to come to this conclusion and still my online portfolio is full of things that shouldn’t be there. Rant over and out.
There is a huge difference between posting your misscreations for the lols and putting everything into you portfolio. We are not building our portfolio here nor do we post for promotions. No one is going to look here except other artists that have fun showing their worsts for a good laugh.
This thread isn’t meant to praise bad or good art, just to show that we’re all human, there are things we produce that aren’t great, but that doesn’t equate to being a bad or worthless person. It might seem an exaggeration, but there are a lot of people (myself included) that often externalize their own personal value, meaning they associate their worth based on how successful they are (whatever that might entail).
I would like to see the pictures that go wrong, just to see that process, that selection, and seeing the bad can bring new value to the good.
On this one I think @Takiro hit the nail on the head, this thread is not to post your portfolio, quite the opposite. It’s to post those dreaded pieces that make you feel like crap just looking at them, because you remember how far away you might be to the level you aspire to.
It’s also to remind ourselves that those bad pieces can be really constructive on your growth, and shouldn’t be discarded. @tiar had a really cool lesson on the use of reference and the impact it has on your artwork. That lesson might unlock something in someone else, maybe someone who thinks that reference is cheating. Lord knows how many years I thought of that.
Despite disagreeing with pretty much everything you said, thank you for sharing your input, and wish you the best!
It’s not a good idea to be knowingly posting your worst work, there’s no valid reason to do it and we shouldn’t encourage it. To be honest, if you have any work that you actually know is crap, and it makes you feel like crap to look at it, why hasn’t it been rubbed out and corrected, or deleted and re-attempted, why even hold on to it let alone exhibit it publicly? Do you get my meaning? I struggle to understand how you think this might to anyone’s benefit.
Perhaps you might suggest posting progressive images showing a bad image being improved, that would be educational. The thread was just asking people to show their worst.
I think you’re completely over emphasizing everything about this single thread in this site. It is one thread, just to serve as a reminder that we all go through the same. It’s a grueling journey to become a good artist, and it’s normal that there are lulls along the way in terms of motivation. This was merely a simply meant to be an uplifting thread, because there is a certain power in publicly acknowledging your mistakes, and honestly, it’s a pity that a thread devoted to making people feel a little better with their own shortcomings is getting sidetracked with this.
I can agree with that, I didn’t think of that when I made this thread. Still, I stand by my original idea of showing our own flaws. Unfortunately, this didn’t get much traction, but it still served to generate some discussion, and if anyone was motivated after seeing someone else’s bad paintings, then great!
I think you are promoting the (in my opinion) unhealthy image of the always perfect artist. I believe it is very important to acknowledge that we all struggle sometimes and to learn to shrug it off and laugh. It’s like when you bump you head on the fridge door and spill tomato souce all over your head (wich totally didn’t happen to me), and then you curse but laugh because it was soo stupid and eventually you tell your friends about it and laugh with them.
This thread is the same and nobody is forced to post here.
Just a couple of mine I just let them for good. It’s true we should embrace failure as it is what brings us further. Nobody is ever perfect. I still just don’t think it’s something you really want or need to share, everybody his own. I have no problem with it.
What I wanted to say is that it may hurt and disencourages than anything else. Someones work can be something personal and very very very VERY subjective. Someone might say some of the best of Picasso is a failure.
I just have the situation where I experience this with my 2 daughters who are very talented, yet very intimidated by what I or other artist produce. Showing them my worst art, they still think it’s 1000 times better than what they can do. It gets kinda tricky. That’s why my I said it might kinda rude to others and can get complicated.
Dude, that’s exactly what I was think when I just saw your “worst” art. But I also know that it doesn’t help very much to compare yourself with others. As artists we can only truly compare ourself with our past self.
The fourth one reminds me of one of the exercises from How To Render. Metallic surfaces with a lot of reflections are sooo damn hard, especially curved ones. I still pretty much avoid anything that reflects x3.
. My teacher told me that there is no such thing as bad art, there is only good and better art. These may seem crap to you but these are one of the formative steps that lead you towards your goal. So they are in fact very much important.
(I hope I will be able to fix the proportions and I hope that practicing painting with references will allow me to paint this kind of stuff even without 
)
