It seems, learning to draw has never been as easy as nowadays. However, a lot of people confuse lots of repetitive drawing with growth. Sure, practice is important, but drawing mindlessly is quite pointless. Every drawing should teach the artist something. Otherwise, there is no professional development. Without analyzing the work and thinking about improvements, one will continue to draw on the same level. This reasoning applies not only to art, but to all areas of life.
Another important aspect of learning is the ability to find and fix mistakes. Learning new techniques and skills is important. However, self-learning is a slow and winding path. Finding a great teacher who can critique and help improve is essential. It’s easy to try to learn something, but it’s hard to see whether one is applying the knowledge correctly. A solution to the problem might not be obvious without outside point of view.
However, it’s important to understand the difference between a more knowledgeable artist and a teacher. An artist without teaching training might now know how to approach critique and how to actually help the student. Simply showing how to draw doesn’t solve the mystery, because most artist can’t really explain how they achieved the result. Therefore, a good teacher would point out missed points on student’s work and explain how to fix them.
Since I’ve been learning to draw my entire life, I speak from experience. Every time I get stuck and seem to be unable to move on, it’s a sign to find a workshop or an art course with feedback. A great analogy here would be playing a video game. Sure, there are some enemies along the way, but at the end, one always has to deal with the boss. One has to practice while learning to draw, but to get to the next step an outside help from a qualified teacher is necessary.
