Thread by @delaneykingrox

This is the year you can go from saying "I wish I could draw" to having drawing be a part of your life.
You do NOT need talent, talent is just a head start. Talent is the art hare, but you can be the art tortoise.

#art

Here is what you need to know, REALLY know.

1. Drawing is NOT a gift only a privileged few have.

2. Talent is not a prerequisite to acquiring the ability to draw.

3. Draw for YOU. Draw in private. Draw rubbish. Doodle. Get comfortable being in a space where you draw.

4. Do not judge yourself as good or bad. Do not judge yourself as good enough or not good enough.

5. Examine what you like and don't like about PARTS of the work not the whole. What doesn't work? Why doesn't it work? The PARTS are what you improve, bit by bit.

6. The PARTS of your drawing are questions you can get answers to. If you break things down, you can learn those little bits.

Is your lines too even? Study how people do lineweight.

Is your shading too heavy?

Is your light source a mystery?

Ask questions, get answers

7. Allow yourself complete and total freedom to make a mess on each page of your sketchbook. Fuck it, have lots of sketch books, use them up, waste pages. Nobody will see them, its scaffolding for you, the artist.

8. Please do not stop. Make it a habit. Enjoy it.

9. There is NO magic in perfection.
There is no humanity in perfection.

You are the only person who can draw like you, tell the stories you can, your mistakes and your preferences make your style- the magic is in who you are.

And you are a person who draws.

10. Draw bad. Draw junk. Trace. Copy. Use reference. There is no cheating in learning.

11. There are a bajillion turorials online for free, there are short courses on gunroad, there is skillshare... you just need ten minutes to watch a video now and again.

12. You can draw. You can learn to draw. I have never met anyone I couldn't teach how to draw in the couple of decades I have been teaching.

STOP BUYING INTO THE BULLSHIT.

You want to be able to draw? Draw. It really is that simple.

Your problem is a mental barrier.

I taught myself photoshop. I taught myself how to paint. I taught myself digital sculpting.

I am not special, I just put one foot in front of the other.

If you learn one thing from me, please let it be this.

You have the power to be better each day at what you want to be.

Treat me to a coffee if you like, but right after get some paper and a pencil or pen and just start putting marks down on the page. This is your year to start this lifelong love.

You CAN do this.

ko-fi.com/dellak

And one last lesson:

Great artists are never truly happy with their own work. It is what drives us to constantly improve.