Can't seem to draw anymore....

twirlagig

Today I bought another sketch pad - another one to add to the pile of unused ones that I already have. I'm sitting here for the last hour or so and nothing in the way of ideas or techniques is hitting me. This is going on for years. I was really good at drawing in my late teens/early 20's. That's like 20 years ago now and I'm always missing it. Every now and then I take a notion and say 'right, I'm going to get back into this' and buy a few supplies but it's not happening for me. It's frustrating - can you lose an ability over time like that?
Anyone else ever felt like they were in the same boat? And if so, how did you get back into it?

Tiriel

You are under pressure to draw something - relax I think the best thing would be to join a class, or join a group that meet like the Dublin Sketchers - make it something easy going and no pressure.

It will come back to you - don't worry

twirlagig

Cork_girl wrote: »

You are under pressure to draw something - relax I think the best thing would be to join a class, or join a group that meet like the Dublin Sketchers - make it something easy going and no pressure.

It will come back to you - don't worry

Thanks for the comment @Cork_girl! I hope it does come back

Call Me Jimmy

in pretty much the same situation myself. I think to a certain extent you lose the type of hand eye coordination but it can be gotten back. When I was a child what made me very good at drawing, the craft was just copying images. It didn't mean I was a good artist or whatever but it gave me the tools to become an artist (which I never did). It developed my eye, and the mental-physical connections in the brain.

So I suppose patience, repetition and calmness are what's needed. Also the single-mindedness of childhood was great in that you could concentrate so well on some 'unimportant' thing for hours.

dharma200

What you have to do is look around you, look online, look at all the things you look at, take photographs... Put all this in your sketchbook, along with things you are interested in, articles from newspapers, magazines, flyers... Print stuff out.. Look at blogs...

Ask yourself.... Why do you want to draw something realistically that all ready exists... If you can't do that does that make you a failure artistically?

You obviously want to express something... Is it all you want to make a reproduction or a pretty picture ?

What things are you interested in, what issues? What is it. You want to represent? Do you just want people to go wow I wish I could draw like that , or do you actually want to be creative....

Start your sketch book with something else thanyour own work, draw on it, draw around it, draw with it..

Hths

Melena

I call it my artist block!! I find I don't feel better until i find something I just want to draw, nothing big or anything . Then i just make myself do it. It might be terrible, it might be great but it loosens me up.
After that I can ##usually'' get back into the swing of things.
Or failing that grab a page and grab a pencil and scribble/doodle like mad. Fast , slow whatever works. Don't think just do it. It will warm you up.