Drawing has always been a favorite pass time, coming up with new ideas, costume designs, and mythical creatures. However, there are also lots of problems that linger around as well, like eyes, hands, and other people with their expectations. I mostly face these problems with drawing, though I know there are always similar problems with every other art mediums out there. These are just a few issues artists deal with on a day-to-day basis.

Whether it’s drawing people or animals, drawing eyes can be so frustrating. One eye will be perfect, just where I want it, just how I want it. It’s detailed, the right size, with the exact number of lashes I was hoping for. Then there’s that other eye… It’s too big. So I correct it. Now, it’s too small AND crooked. So the eye gets redrawn one hundred times, till it reaches a point where it’s doable. The detail doesn’t quite look the same on this eye either. Eventually, you just have to leave well enough alone and hope no one looks too closely. Another feature that’s hard to draw are hands. They almost never seem to be quite proportionate to the rest of the body. The person being drawn also has six fingers, when they shouldn’t. Which way does the right-hand face again? Now the person’s pinky is longer than their middle. More re-dos until It’s workable. Now onto the rest of the drawing!

Sometimes it’s hard getting original thoughts to the paper. It’s easy to look at someone else’s art and think “I’m gonna try that,” and next thing you know, you redid someone else’s work, with minimal personal touches. Though this can help spark ideas and help a brain who doesn’t have any idea of what to draw, It’s not truly yours and can lead to dissatisfaction. As da Vinci as my inspiration, it’s easy for me to want to recreate his works or create my own inventions based on what he’s done. However, in doing this, the pieces I create are still influenced by this other artist and conflicts with the desire to create a piece that is untouched by anything other than myself. Part of this trouble also happens to be linked with not being able to get the image in my head onto the paper before me. So it’s easy to see what other people have done before you and maybe their techniques is exactly what you’re looking for. Though, sometimes that’s not the case and you just have to attempt a drawing several times to get just the right look.

People can also be a problem for us artists. Whether a person is asking us to draw them something, questioning a finished piece, or have annoying expectations. I like being able to draw whatever I want, however, I want, when I want. At the same time, I like the fact that people enjoy my drawing and I do love drawing for people and drawing thing they like. It’s a love, hate relationship. There’s also people who like to critique art work harshly and question every detail. Then when asked if they could draw better, they simply state “no.” Which is frustrating… hands are hard to draw, cut me some slack; or just maybe my pictures are symbolic and people shouldn’t take the picture so literally. All in all, art is fun, there are just also happens to be these annoying irks that haunt every artist.