This is SO relatable ! I feel this a lot too, so I've came up with my own conclusion : you have to "do it right" FRIST and THEN "do it a lot". Therefore you will practice with the right method and won't reproduce mistakes, since you've already corrected them in the first step. I think that it's very important because, if you skip the first step, you will indeed develop bad habits. Hopefully this helps and have a good day! Sincerely, a fellow lost artist.

I feel like it should be both and adjusted to "Do your best a lot." or "do your best to get it right and do it a lot." That should also come with the understanding that it will take a lot of failures and time until you create something you're satisfied with. For me, it helps to assess my works and look for the things I got better while also acknowledging the things I need to improve on. Although the things I got better at will seem minimal compared to the things that could be improved, I keep in mind that slow progress is still progress and it really is about mileage with the pencil or brush, and being self aware about what you need to work on. With time, the work you imagine in your head will match with the work you put out in the world more often (but definitely not always). Hope that helps.

I am currently frustrated with myself and am questioning my progress. I have a formal art education and feel like it neglected the fundamentals and worked on more intuitive drawing. I have recently attempted in studying the fundamentals and doing it right. When I try to make perfect drawings I get stiff and lose control of the drawing. Though when I let go and am not self conscious I can quickly draw something and surpasses what I thought I could achieve. For now I am just trying to keep drawing and try to vary a lot of drawings vs a small amount so that I can hope to get to a point that I get to a comfortable in between.

Hey Finlo, that's a common complaint that a lot of people have about drawing advice. I think you're correct to be frustrated and I don't think that advice is actually help when worded that way. The thing that teachers don't clarify when telling you this is both are actually the same advice. What I mean by this is they're essentially trying to achieve the same thing. When a teacher tells you this, they've both failed a ton, and have done it intentionally. When "doing it right", you're doing it intentionally and focusing on every step of the process to make sure you make any bad mistakes. Where people get caught up is the focus on over analyzing everything and as a result make no progress. Obviously that's bad because you're stuck potentially making the same mistakes or hyper focusing on parts of the process that might require a looser form of drawing. When people say "do it a lot", they mean to draw with intentionality but not getting caught up on the parts of drawing that are holding you back. That can be negative because you might move past things that you should pay more attention to. The goal of both is to get you to a place where you're not paralyzed or afraid of drawing and the problem is falling too much into one or the other. The real way to get over this stuff is to stop over analyzing both ways of studying and start trusting yourself more. You're a good artist, and you're on the right track. The question you should ask yourself is do you personally believe that about yourself? Do whatever actually makes you want to draw more. Don't "try" to draw more intuitively, just draw more intuitively. And when you're thinking about whether or not you should draw more, the answer is always yes. Good luck

I would do some of both. Do a lot fast so you can get faster at drawing and take in a lot of patterns and trends in quickly. Also do some slow drawings so you can get the experience of sitting with a drawing for a long time and be able to make it neat and rendered and everything.

Doing it right: a lot

People have been giving great answers, so I’ll give some more points to add on: - Just because you spend more time to do it right, doesn’t always mean it will turn out right - Just because you do it quickly, doesn’t always mean it will be failures - A professional has probably failed more times than a novice has even tried

Hi Finlo! I think one idea could be to try something in the middle of the two extremes. It might not solve your problem, but maybe it could help ease your frustration a bit. for example: If then you are “Doing it ‘right’” you might normally work for 4 hours on a piece, you could try to instead do it in three and a half hours, or if you would normally take 1 hour to do something, try doing it in 45 minutes instead, just to be able enjoy the quality without getting quite as frustrated about time, The same for the second approach “doing it a lot”. If then you work quickly you spend 10 minutes on an exercise maybe try 15 minutes instead, or go from 30 seconds to 45 seconds. Maybe it could help you to still get quantity while being a bit happier about the overall quality. Or do something in between the examples I gave. If you fastest is a 1 minute sketch and longest 2 hours, maybe try to do something that takes half an hour instead. Feel around and see if you can find your own pace. Nothing is wrong with fast or slow, I think the most important thing is to find what suits you personally. One extra note about the second piece of advice in your example ‘doing it a lot’. It’s hard, but then it comes to mistakes try to think of them, not as actually mistakes, but as a valuable piece of learning opportunity. If we never make mistakes, we don't learn from them and don’t get as many chances for growth! I think it’s a very interesting and important topic you brought up and it’s good that it gets talked abut. I hope you find a way that feels right for you!

Hell yes! I have noticed that for me drawing fast or failing more, and quickly, has not helped. Whatever I am learning or working on I do it the best I can and take my time. I feel much better about the out comes which I feel is important to keeping up my self esteem and enjoy the process. One other thought I have is some things need to be quick like gestures or thumbnail drawing. Those should be quick and dirty. Hope this helps.

My 2c You should go as fast as you can while still learning/improving. You might be going too fast if you: -         Don’t have control over your pencil/stylus. -         Don’t understand the fundamental/form/lighting/concept you are practicing (can you articulate what you are seeing/learning?), -         Repeatably make the same you mistake (without improvements), -         Don’t understand/take the time to understand what mistakes we’ve made, -         Can’t actively think about and try to incorporate the lessons you’ve learned from your last mistake. Keep in mind, if you only practice at one pace, you’ll have a hard time to adept when you have to change it.

The easy answer is: do a lot but always try to make the best work you can. This allows you to have a lot of practice, make a lot of mistakes and also have good art. In my case i'm studing by myself with the goal of becoming an illustrator, so i'm drawing every day (mostly exercise and challenges that focus on the subject that i'm studing) and i try to make each week a completed llustration appling those concepts that i have learned and trying something that i don't know yet. Naturally you probably won't like your art but this method provides a costant challenge. Also i would advise to use a curriculum of subjetcs so that you can understand at what point you are in and don't get frustrated. Hope it helps XD

It sure is a conundrum, I guess all you can do is whatever feels right at the moment. If you feel like working on a single piece for a month then do it. If you want to do quick sketches then do that. It doesn't have to be one or the other.

I would say, you should separate them a bit. For me, if I do practice my goal is to draw as much as possible and just fill in pages. I believe @Stan Prokopenko and @Marshall Vandruff talked about this in the Draftsmen Podcast, where two groups of students were tasked to create the best piece of pottery they could produce. One of the groups had to work on one single piece of pottery, while the other ones had to create several. In the end, the team which has created several pieces of pottery ended up winning the competition, because they simply had more experience. Also, it gives you a sense of accomplishment if you finish something you are working on. If you only do 30-hour illustrations you will quickly find yourself unmotivated, because you won't feel like you are improving. The 'Do it right' approach should be used when you are *working*. If you have an important personal project, or you have a commission to do always strive for creating the best thing you can because these are going to be your most important works. I hope I could help! Have fun on your art journey! :)

I get confused by this a lot, too! I suppose it depends on what you're doing right now and whether or not you're getting the type of practice you need out of it. Personally, I have poor line control relative to where I want to be, and I think it's because I've naturally been thinking in approach 2 for a long time. It's not that it hasn't resulted in growth ( I credit it for teaching me not to get attached to one drawing if its going badly, for example), but it's also encouraged my sloppiness and it's not teaching me what I need at the moment. So, I'm consciously making myself to use approach 1 more often, and spending more time doing one thing right. It means my production speed has slowed down, but my accuracy is improving! I once heard an artist say, "slow is smooth, smooth is fast," and that's been repeating in my head since I got back on Proko's courses. Biiit of a ramble I wrote up there. But basically, I think the right question to ask ourselves is, "What am I trying to learn?" That'll help you know what to do for each concept you're trying to pick up. For example, I'm trying to improve my understanding of anatomy and perspective, which is a very technical goal and based in accuracy, so I've decided its better to do 10 attempts right than 50 of them wrong. For things like quick gestures, I think more=better. Further thoughts?

I've been obsessed with Austin Osman Spare recently, and there's a passage from a book I was reading called The Static Alignments on Spare's school of draughtsmanship that has some of his advice to students. I think it's relevant. First, "Riding a bike for the first time is very tiring, and with Art it's just that." Which makes me think of your comment about getting frustrated at how long things take. The idea I think is that if you keep at it, you'll get through the frustration. Spare also had the following recommendations, direct quoted list from the book: 1. All the practice you can get. 2. To be an enthusiast and obsessed with "ideas" however vague. 3. That real knowledge is always first felt and whether it becomes more knowable or remains vague doesn't affect your work. 4. Your effort (now) should be towards realism (you will always interpret your way) and towards satisfaction, e.g. to do your best. 5. You never will be satisfied or do your best -- no one has but their great accomplishments are through the effort and constancy towards perfection as they saw and felt it. So...in summary, my response to this problem based on the art advice of Austin Osman Spare is to practice your art of choice a lot, and every time you do it just try to do your best, whatever your best is.

I think both are paths worthy to follow, you just need to find an equilibrium. I think you should include a lot of work without worrying about quality and some detailed works without worrying about the time spent. Of course, if we are talking about paid works then go for the quality. 

I think what people mean, when they tell you not to worry about the quality of the art, is that you don't want to obsess about everything you draw being perfect. It's important not to rush things when drawing and painting but also realise that most of the stuff you draw as a beginner won't be masterpieces. So my advice to you would be to take your time and do it correctly, eventually you'll build up enough muscle memory, intuition and skill that things naturally speeds up.

I feel you. But I believe in quantity over quality. The more you draw the more you get better. I think Anthony Jones said one of his interview about the Bad ass threshold that is so true. If you want improve quick my tip would be try following your most favourite artist, just one artist and copy how he draws or sketch. I prefer the alive artist for the purpose of proof. We are proof animal. I know there are famous artist prefer the dead. the pros are 1. you can talk to them 2. you can see the speed on how they draw. 3. you like their style so much(don't worry when someone say your style looks like her or him as long you are learning fast that's the key.