Hating Your Own Art

Is it okay to hate your art? | Watercolor Butterfly ♡ Sketchbook Saturday 002

Hello and welcome to another Sketchbook Saturday. Today I’ll be sharing my thoughts on hating our own art while painting this watercolor butterfly (video is above).

Is it okay to hate your own art? In my opinion, it’s normal and something that every artist goes through.

In the first year and a half of me painting consistently, I hated basically every artwork I created. And if I didn’t hate something I created, a few months later I’d start to hate it. I think this is because my art improved and evolved quickly during that time. 

Have you ever created an art piece that you loved and months or years later you’d look at it again and ask yourself why you even liked it in the first place? This has happened to me a lot, and like I said it’s normal.

I feel like us artists, we have these high expectations of our art and we see in our minds the masterpiece we want to replicate on paper or canvas. And for most of us, our expectations doesn’t meet up with our skill level.

So we have these high expectations but not the skill level to render our ideas perfectly as they are in our minds.

So then we end up not liking what we create, or even hating our art. 

I’ve been going through this for about two years now. But as I improved my skills and developed my style more, I’ve been hating my art less and less. I feel like I finally have the skills to bring my ideas to life the way I imagine them, at least for the most part. 

But it’s taken me years to get to this point in my artist journey.

The way to get through this stage in the artist journey is to just keep on creating and practicing even if you hate your art. Even if you don’t like what you create.

Kind of accept in your mind that you won’t be able to bring your idea to life perfectly the way you imagine it. This will relieve pressure and stress on yourself. And just know that you can always recreate that idea again in the future.

You can also try something new like a new medium or subject you haven’t created before. Maybe this will help you get through hating your art and help you improve your skills quicker so that you can begin to like your art. 

And remember that it can only get better from here and that even if you hate your art, you’re not a failure.

Practicing and learning something is not failing. The only time you could fail is by giving up completely on art because you hate your art. So just keep on going.

I want to hear your thoughts and opinions on this subject, so let me know in the comments what you think! And what other topics you’d like me to talk about for these Sketchbook Saturdays.