📌

This is actually the case with all skill-reliant activities, not just art. And frustration tolerance decreases with age (as your other, core skills, grow).

What's the cliche in creative writing? "Everyone has a thousand bad poems inside of them, so you'd better start writing them out so you can get to the good ones".

I’ve heard this same cliche told about art and drawings!

"Everyone's first few attempts at a thing suck. Maybe it's not until the 1000th attempt that you won't suck. But you can't have a 1000th without a 1st, so get crackin'. And don't be discouraged when your 1st sucks, because it's your 1st attempt!"

This genuinely helped me do art today, thank you

Art is just a hobby for me, but one thing that I feel honestly helped me get started and keep going was my motto of "Only God is perfect"

Alt text: Screenshot of a tumblr post by eldritchdilf-deactivated2025061. Contrary to popular belief the biggest beginner's roadblock to art isn't even technical skill it's frustration tolerance, especially in the age of social media. It hurts and the frustration is endless but you must build the

frustration tolerance equivelant to a roach's capacity to survive a nuclear explosion. That's how you build on the technical skill. Throw that "won't start because I'm afraid it won't be perfect" shit out the window. Just do it. Just start. Good luck.

But also don't force yourself through periods of frustration cause you'll end up burning out and hating yourself, it's okay and even good to take a step back and rest and get back to it later

My rule of thumb was "Ya'know what? F*ck it! I like writing, so I'll write!" And I managed to self-publish a book on that. Do I wish it was better? Yes. But it helped me iron out my writing style and work on improvement. Never doubt the power of "F*ck it"!

There was a thing going on over on like twitter. Might have made the rounds here. Make it exist first. You can make it perfect later but you still have to make it exist in the first place

ganbatte, Roomba-san, etc.

Sadly that frustration tolerance has been an issue all 33 years of my life. To everything. Growing up a "gifted" kid didnt help because instead of throwing things at me I would find challenging, but not too challenging, everything was just pure easy mode. Then I graduated and I was gifted no more.

This. 🥲

As someone who programs a lot, learned that the hard way. Even then, I still feel quite a bit frustrated when things go wrong. It'll definitely be a while for me to build that tolerance up...

It helped me to think of the phrase "fuck it, ship it" (within reason) I'm absolutely not encouraging crappy code, just code that does what it intends to do good enough since perfection is a fool's game

Continuing, it does not help that mistakes keep slipping, which leads me to become even more frustrated for not catching them the first time

Very true. Of course, the other half of the frustration comes from measuring yourself against others, especially when you're starting out. Always remember that everyone has their own style and their own ability to express it.

I follow a miniature painter with a positive attitude towards mistakes and I read in the comments that people want to start but are afraid to ruin things. That is a problem, the fear of mistakes, of not achieving perfection on the first try. It's never been easier to start with art.

Worried about not being able to hold fine brushes? Grab larger scale miniatures and get yourself some markers, even bigger paint companies are releasing them. Setting realistic standards also helps, removing the fear and having fun with pushing pigments and pixels.

"The frustration tolerance equivalent to a roach's capacity to survive a nuclear explosion," LOL 😂 😂 😂 I LOVE IT.

Me when someone posts art then says "I'm sorry that it's bad." I'd be more upset if you let your self-consciousness keep you from posting it at all-

...frustrating to hear. Frustrating to realize I'm frustrated.

If it helps, the thought that carries me through is that being frustrated means that your standard and ideas are ever evolving & your hand just havent caught up yet. Even industry professionals feel degrees of this same struggle! You may not see the improvement yet but it is there.

In my case it was everyone telling me I was doing it wrong. So I continued doing it wrong to spite them. 👀 Then I started studying.

True but I’d also highlight the reverse of this - be to satisfaction as a cactus is to water. ANY little aspect of the skill you perform successfully even once, you have to savor it and let that feeling carry you. Great hobby circles do this for their beginners, but it’s gotta come from within too

I love this analogy 🏜️

I remember back twenty or more years ago being encouraged by a friend online to join this website where they'd have a giant canvas broken into squares, and you'd get assigned a square and then have to make some pixel art for your square and upload it. You'd get to see a small strip of surrounding

squares, but that was it until the whole canvas was done and then everything was revealed and people could vote on squares. So your account had a reputation, and some canvases would have minimum reputation levels or whatever. Pretty normal social features for a pre-social-media website.

Anyway, it's one thing to look at what you've done and see what other people have done and judge that it's not great. It's another to be reporting a big to the people who own the website that there's a bug because "open for all" canvases were actually closed to people with negative reputation, a

thing I was apparently the first one to run into, because I guess no one's pixel art had ever been bad enough to get a negative reputation on their account as a whole.

Yeah I really feel that. When I try to draw it's hard to keep some form of patience of trying to get to a point where what I'm drawing isn't a jumbled mess of lines if it's digital. Plus it feels like as I get older, how long will it take to get good? Is it even worth the effort to develop art skill

Also like wanting to be able to draw feels like I have to learn to draw and it just seems a bit insurmountable, mad respect to all the artists out there

Yeah this checks. This is how I learned. My first real piece took 10-ish days as I got used to the frustration of "why doesn't it look any good"

Goodness knows I can tolerate failure - I've been putting up with me for the last 4 decades - but my wallet can't. My mortgage, my family can't. Stopping the drudgery to start failing upwards at this point, on a wholly separate hill, would obliterate my livelihood.

The left side of my brain knows this, the right side is the one that needs convincing.

What's "Frustration Tolerance"?

In this context, it's your ability to power through the frustration that comes from dissatisfaction without giving up.

Oooh! Gotcha, thank you! ✨🤩👍

speaking as someone who didn't have this frustration tolerance until a few years ago, this really vibes with me ❤️👍

Writing and Drawing is a struggle. But that struggle is also craftsmanship. To put down onto paper that idea which is in your head, down to the finest minute detail. Getting that scene absolutely perfect, so that another may partake in your emotion. That is the struggle.

Yup. I'm a photographer but it applies to every artform. Got nowhere until I gave myself permission to fail. That was the hard part. Never revoked that permission, even after I was less successful and consistent at failing.

I feel like I didn't have avoidant perfectionism when I started drawing consistantly at 11 years-old. I do now, and it's a big hurdle for every creative endeavor I do. I can only hope kids these days don't have it already...

📌

Ah, yes. The drawing you really like that got zero likes online.