The more you learn...

[razielim]

The more I paint, the more I realize I have no clue what I'm doing tbh. I guess that's just how the brain is designed - you lose conscious awareness of what you do know.

I still half expect that every time I run into a problem, I'll strain a little and then gasp and say "Wait, I know how to fix this! I learned it last month!" and then magic will happen. While that does occur occasionally, most of the time, I just keep chugging along, solving problems I used to not know the solutions to without realizing they're even there until I get to one I'm completely unfamiliar with, and then I'm staring at it thinking "Well, shit, if I didn't have a deadline, and I wasn't afraid of getting distracted and falling into ADHD googling hell, I'd go spend five hours learning about this, but as it is, we'll have to just fix this up with some duct tape and pray." And just like in real life, sometimes duct tape is a miracle worker that works and puts the problem out of sight, out of mind forever because it just happened to be the best fix. But sometimes it's glaringly ugly and draws your attention to it forever to remind you of your failure.

So I guess that... it still is the case that the best way to tell how much I've improved is not how I feel during the process, but how much the final product pleases me compared to the previous few. And in this case... I think I've definitely stagnated since March and really need to get back to studying, because my satisfaction with my final drafts has definitely dropped off since I started working only on full pieces.

Comments

[kalloway]

I feel that way at work all the time, when I run into something I can't fix. I get all flustered and start thinking I've been doing this for years now and still know nothing, and it takes awhile to remember all the things I can effortlessly fix that I couldn't when I started. (And then I do have impressive fuckups, but I learn a lot from them, which is the important part!)

Also, hi! Nice to meet you!

[razielim]

I was thinking about just art, but now that you've brought up work... *breaks out in a cold sweat* You're totally right. J-just gotta keep learning from impressive fuckups bc I've also already come a long way even if it might not feel that way sometimes.

Yes! Nice to meet you! :D