Practice makes me worse? - WetCanvas: Online Living for Artists

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March 12, 2018 at 2:17 pm #452828
Armadillobelly
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Does anyone else ever feel like the more they practice painting the worse their work gets? Weird, right? That’s what’s happening with me. Over the course of a year I have seen a marked decline in skill and quality of work despite practicing consistently. I wonder why this is happening? It’s extremely frustrating. If you went through this did you ever figure out why your paintings were getting worse over time? What did you do about it? How did you break out of the cycle?
March 12, 2018 at 2:39 pm #583340
Retiree
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Well practice sounds like work to me. Maybe because you are forcing yourself to paint and not really enjoying the process? I paint every weekend ( about 10 hours total more or less) because I work during the week. So maybe you could say essentially I am practising every weekend, however, it does not feel like practice to me at all. I feel joyful every time I paint. I do not force myself to paint.
March 12, 2018 at 2:49 pm #583348
LoganArt
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Maybe you’re growing and learning so you just see your mistakes more.

Can you show us a timeline of your work?

C&C always welcome
March 12, 2018 at 2:56 pm #583344
ntl
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Your situation and question are very interesting to me. That has happened to me with certain subjects, flowers, figure drawing, and still lifes in particular. BUT, I’m just learning EVERYTHING, so never WAS very good ANYTHING! (That’s my story, and I’m stickin’ with it!) Of course, I’m just learning on everything else, too.

I had/have an absolutely marvelous situation–figure drawing–at an affordable cost over as many days a week as I want (which of course could get expensive)
I took part on Fridays, $10/3 hours, live model, for several months, and it appeared to me that I was not only not improving, I was getting worse. I quit going. (no teacher, just studio time)
My plein air work is similar: not improving, at times, seems to get worse.

I rarely force myself to work at painting/drawing. I take breaks instead, from a few minutes to whatever time is needed. Right now, I’ve been on a break for a couple of weeks. Avoiding making 2 adjustments on an otherwise finished piece. :confused: That doesn’t even make sense. And it’s a piece I like, that came out well. Today, I have paperwork to do, then vacuuming…

I did go outside yesterday with crayons and drew a landscape with a couple of trees. Spent about 30-40 minutes, and immediately tossed it. I did it to hopefully re-start…

But actually, upon reading your post, my first thought was, “What changed in your life?” Health, physical, mental, emotional, spiritual, familial, meds, financial stresses? Loss of interest?

For me, I think I just get worn out at times, and need to re-charge by doing something different.
March 12, 2018 at 3:26 pm #583334
caldwell.brobeck
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Certainly I see it from time to time in my work, it’s just a normal stage in progressing your work and not something to worry about. Acquiring skills to the level they become intuitive takes time, and during that learning period there’s a lot of conflict between what you are learning and what you know (or think you know). That conflict leads to indecision, uncertainty, and overthinking (for examples) which in turn show up in the work, and tend to make a painting feel “bad”, especially if one tends to prefer a more expressive approach.

There’s lots of ways to deal with it. For example, if you want to just give the new learning time to really sink in, you can change media or subject matter for awhile. Or you might take a bit of a holiday from the learning by making pictures now and then for your own pleasure without thinking at all about what you have been studying (the lessons will creep in anyway), or learn to alternate between study pieces and paintings you want to do as you would. And of course, learning to laugh at one’s follies is usually a good thing.

Finally a bit of advice given to me a long long time ago – a good artist will always be somewhat disappointed by their own work, because during the creation of the work, you learned something that you did not know before you started.

Cheers;
Chris

C&C of all sorts always welcome! (I don't mind rude or harsh criticism.)
I suppose I have to do this too (my blog, & current work). My Visual Arts Nova Scotia page.
Art is the most intense mode of individualism that the world has known - Oscar Wilde

The primary palette: Attention, observation, memory, imagination, integration, execution
March 12, 2018 at 3:27 pm #583335
La_
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Painting is easy when you don’t know how, but very difficult when you do.
Edgar Degas

la

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When the power of love overcomes the love of power, the world will know Peace
March 12, 2018 at 3:51 pm #583342
Colorado_Ed
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Painting is easy when you don’t know how, but very difficult when you do.
Edgar Degas

Isn’t that the truth!

A huge part of the issue is that when you’re practicing, a huge part of practice is analysis and reflection and before you know it, you’re analyzing to death what used to be super spontaneous.

"The universe is under no obligation to make sense to you." Neil deGrasse Tyson

My blog: http://ejsherman.blogspot.com/
Instagram: edward_sherman
March 13, 2018 at 8:30 am #583341
chamisa
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When I feel I am starting to regress with my paintings, it’s usually from overwhelm. trying to process and overthink too much.
There’s the pressure of finding a good composition, simplifying into simple shapes, drawing accurately, getting the values correct, the colors correct, good brushwork, etc etc

So what works for me, is to go back to the basics and simplify. I will spend time practicing on very simple compositions, easily drawn, in just a monotone and work on just values from copying a color photo into monotone values, (not worrying about perfect drawing accuracy) using just three values, then maybe five value studies. Real easy, builds my seeing skills and my confidence back up. I do this for days or weeks until it starts to feel intuitive and easier. I use the Value Finder app on my iPad and load a photo to it, and then can check if I got my values correct. Really helps me build my seeing-values skills.

Then I move to another skill to work on but continue to make the compositions and drawing easy to deal with. Then maybe I just work on drawing accuracy (we always need drawing practice) or do some fun easy brushwork exercises to get fluid nice brush strokes that come naturally and more accurately.
Keep it simple, simple, simple, and not overwhelming and only one skill at a time,so you can gain confidence and skills and enjoyment instead of constant stress and discouragement.

Then try a regular painting, and see what skills seem to have improved, and go back and single out the skill that still needs more work and practice focused on just that skill.
Good luck!
March 13, 2018 at 9:36 pm #583336
Use Her Name
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I get bored easily, so I want to finish quickly, however, practice does not make me worse, it has made me better. The more I do, the better I get. Also, the faster I get. Also the less I think about what I am doing.

No longer a member of WC. Bye.
March 13, 2018 at 9:46 pm #583350
ptrkgmc
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I think it depends on what you are painting. It has been said that you can only paint as well as you can draw.
I would try using a guide, like a two point perspective scheme, sounds complicated I know, but when you puzzle it out, you might find that you will do better.
March 15, 2018 at 4:46 am #583345
SarahY
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Are you sure you’re getting worse?

Or are you just seeing better, and therefore seeing more faults?

Or are you striving for more these days and not quite reaching it yet?

‘Worse’ is a subjective term; how is your work worse? Maybe you could post then and now pieces so people can see and advise?

I remember feeling happy with things I created years ago, but I see more faults in the things I’m creating now. This is because my eye has improved and I am more ambitious to strive to do more complete, better things, and often I don’t quite reach it. However, going through my very first figure studies a little while ago, I could see huge improvements in my work. I simply hadn’t realised how bad they were back then because my eye wasn’t as developed.

http://www.shyeomans.co.uk
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Nothing left but smoke and cellar, and a woman with a black umbrella...
March 15, 2018 at 3:51 pm #583337
Use Her Name
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I do believe that at some point you must tell your inner editor to shut up.
a good way to do this is to time your work. The only time this should not be a rule is when you are waiting for delivery of some material that might be holding you up.

No longer a member of WC. Bye.
March 15, 2018 at 9:39 pm #583351
ronsu18
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yes.

a resounding, unequivocal yes. thank you Armadillobelly for saying this out loud.
still in the throes of it but i think i’ve got it now.

i believe it’s connected to the modes of operation in the brain. when you are recalling memories, solving a puzzle or analyzing perceptions you’re not painting. you literally can’t. the traffic in your head is not in synthesizing multilateral output-mode, it’s in shuffle playback.

it was devastating for a long time, i got over the worst by sheer willpower saying “i’m the one responsible for the first paintings” and kept pushing myself. “choose one thing and do it well”; it was notan and it worked. another was doing 30 minute exercises, try them! not one or two, paint one a day for five days.

first you have to plan because there is no time to think. do the analyzing. mix the colors. check your plan. then start the clock. be prepared for a brutal experience; your worst flaws and ignorance line up to kick your face in. just curse me and my good advice but do a second. you will notice the difference immediately. keep going –

you are the one responsible for the first paintings.

C&C welcome
March 16, 2018 at 5:27 am #583349
Armadillobelly
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Thank you for all the insightful and thoughtful responses. It has occurred to me that practice doesn’t actually help you improve in the way we imagine. What it actually does is create new neural pathways to more efficiently perform tasks we repeat often enough. In other words, it solidifies what we’re practicing. So if we practice and practice but keep making bad paintings, the thing we’re doing over and over again that makes them bad is actually being reinforced and “hard coded” into our brain. What we’re doing is “locking in” neural pathways that make us more efficiently perform worse over time. So practice in this case does not make perfect. All it does is make perfect either our good habits (resulting in improvement over time) OR our bad habits (resulting in what prompted this thread). This is a chilling realization. It makes me think of riding a bicycle. Not a perfect analogy, but here goes: once the practice of balancing on a bike gets locked in you will be able to ride a bike for the rest of your life. The flip side is that you will never again be “unable” to ride a bike. You would have to intentionally tip yourself over to fall down, and even then you would be fighting muscle memory. There was a video on youtube I saw a while back of a guy trying to ride a “reverse” bicycle where if you turn the handlebars left the bike goes right. It took him six months of daily practice to rewire his brain into the new mode of riding. Then when he tried to ride a normal bike again he was unable to and it took him another six months of daily practice to re-learn to ride a normal bicycle.
March 16, 2018 at 9:04 am #583339
budigart
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I’ve attended a few workshops with a few quite good artists and more than once I’ve heard them say that if you start off with poor information/training, then every “practice” session thereafter, you will practicing the wrong way. It is important that your starting “education” in art consist of good/correct information.
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