
How do you try to get really good at something without feeling depressed? - keithy
note: minor Whiplash spoilers<p>I feel like I have to draw&#x2F;paint 8 hours a day to even break it in the concept art industry, I am working my ass off getting better but its making me feel depressed and anxious. I feel like that drummer in Whiplash, constantly practicing and having no social life. I mean I love art but taking it to the next level definitely takes the toll on me. I&#x27;ve gone through a depressive stage before when taking concept art seriously, but recovered after taking like a one year break and now I&#x27;m back on the grind. I want to avoid going through that again. I think it&#x27;s feeling that you put in many hours into a painting and it doesn&#x27;t look as good as you&#x27;d like, and you feel defeated. I think that&#x27;s what I feel when I paint. I mean, even in the industry you&#x27;d probably have to draw&#x2F;paint 8 hrs a day anyway so I want to learn how to handle this. Any tips? Thanks!
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thenomad
Professional visual artist (filmmaker) for the last two decades here. Much
sympathy - what you're going through is genuinely tough.

Suggestions:

1) Therapy, if you can afford it. You're doing this because you love art,
right? And you're getting to do art daily? And it's making you unhappy. That's
something that's worth exploring with a trained professional, because clearly
there's something sub-optimal going on there.

2) How much do you feel it's OK to suck? Is it OK if one of your finished
pieces is pretty awful? What about 3 in a row? One of the problems with art is
that it's an incredibly stressful field to work in professionally because of
the level of competition and the perceived standards. If you're not completely
OK with sucking from time to time, it'll be a hell of a drag on you.

3) Are you releasing your art? Are you getting feedback on it? Making stuff
into a vacuum is draining. If at all possible, try to release it. Also, are
you working on concepts for other people and projects, or just doing practise
stuff? Getting feedback is pretty vital, not least because otherwise you'll
tend to be overly critical of your own stuff, and also often critical in the
wrong areas.

4) [https://vimeo.com/24715531](https://vimeo.com/24715531) . Seriously, watch
that once a day or so - and despite what it says at the start it's not just
for beginners. :) ANOTHER reason that art is really hard is "the gap" as Ira
Glass refers to it. A finished piece never looks quite like it did in your
head.

Hope that all helps, and good luck!

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DanBC
You appear to he concentrating on the short term - I do so much painting yet
I'm not seeing any improvement - and not on the long term iterative nature - I
practice a little bit each day, I won't see much improvement day to day or
week to week, but I'll see improvement year on year.

You don't say whether your practice is providig challenge or not. That might
be a way to improve. Try to set challenges that change the way you work.

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hoers
This! Only having the long term goal in focus is a perfect recipe for anxiety
and depression, setting short term tasks is a good strategy, there are a ton
of others that help with dealing with one's thinking, Mindfulness* being the
obvious big one but also a lot of learning techniques (e.g. priming) have
helped me a lot.

*[https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=jon+kabat+zinn+...](https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=jon+kabat+zinn+mindfulness) <\- Good man on the subject

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rajacombinator
If you find yourself getting depressed, maybe it's not the best career for
you. Most people never break through in art and entertainment fields probably
because either they overestimate their aptitude, or just due to the sheer mass
of people willing to do it for free. Concept art in particular sounds like an
area with a lot of silent struggle and no recognition.

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andersthue
It is kinda funny you ask this question the same day I read this article
[http://zenhabits.net/suck/](http://zenhabits.net/suck/) on how to learn while
sucking at what you are trying to learn :)

It resonated with me because I have had a hard time learning to live with
being bad while learning new stuff.

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hoers
Me and a few people around me made the experience of almost completely losing
interest in what used to be our passion *through studying it. Especially in
the creative areas. I'm a musician half of the time, I struggled a lot with
accepting that my 'creative waves' come and go when they want - forcing output
in moments where there was internal fire led me to big internal conflicts, up
to something you could call 'depression' (I find that word to be somewhat
elusive) - even without any external pressure. Now being in a educational
context that requires you to be creatively expressive on a daily basis doesn't
even give you the option to have those breathing spaces. So we had to chose:
Power through and hope for the best, or (in my case) stop relying on
institutional safety and just go for it. It takes courage, exponentially more
with every day you already put in, but after years of doubt I'm very glad I
did it this way. What I find to be universal: the job paranoia that drove us
crazy faded very quickly once in the job market, in retrospect I can't even
reconstruct why I was so terrified: Keeping steady at doing something you
love, listening a bit to the heart while quieting the mind and finding your
flow .. and I'd be highly surprised if you end up not having any success at
all.

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hoers
Sorry, I misread and thought you were still studying. Applies just the same to
the job though. I'm self employed, so I have the up- and downsides of having
to find and chose and plan projects to keep a somewhat steady income - but
without the luxury of taking a few weeks off those goddamn computers and do
something completely different I'd just go insane. Machines ftw.

