Looking at old work

The sketch above is from March, pen on printer paper.

I have been documenting and uploading my work for over two years now, and it is interesting for me to look back at where I was. I am realizing how motivating looking at old work can be. Some of the sketches I posted from two years ago were at least at the time, the greatest thing I had ever done. Now, all I can see is how off the proportions were and that the eyes are poorly drawn. This shows the progress that can be made, and gives me a reason and the energy to keep going. It shows that as frustrating as the past week may have been, skills still improve over time. Wanna see my old work?  Click here for my stuff from 2008. A lot of cartoons and photoshop await!

It is not until I finish a drawing that I can step back and see what is wrong with it. Setting the piece down and coming back the next day will make some mistakes every obvious. A year of practice and art school makes them almost leap out at you. This is part of what makes getting people to look at your work so important. They have a different set of eyes than you and most of the time they have more experience than you too. They know what makes a piece work (or not work). Show your work to people! Ask them to be honest.

This self portrait was done in back in March.

Looking at it now, mistakes stand out to me. I wonder if that ever goes away, only seeing what went wrong in a piece. People that I consider heroes, do they look at work from a year or two ago (work that still leaves me speechless) and only see errors?

I stopped uploading work online for several months recently because I was unhappy with my where my work was at the time. I was also wary of spending too much time posting stuff online when I should be drawing and improving my skills (it takes time to scan, adjust and upload work). But now I see how helpful and fun it can be to look at old work. I know that I always check the archives of other peoples blogs and compare their old work to the new. My reasons for uploading are now to document where I am, so that over time I can get a sense of where I am going. Hopefully it can eventually help someone else out down the road too.