Sketch Reference Page, Between 2016 & 2017

This is what I consider to be my first actual piece of art. While I certainly doodled when I was a kid it was never with the real goal to learn and get better. Sketch here, a cat/wolf hybrid who was my first fursona, marks a shift in that thinking. Inspired by other furry artists, I found the motivation to create a character of my own. I thought about how I wanted him to look before I put pencil to paper, and when I finally made my attempt to draw him...

I thought it looked like shit.

But I kept going. In 2017 I was a sophomore in high school. At the time of writing this, 2024, I have a bachelor's in studio art. Across my high school and college careers there has been a single phrase uttered countless times by my peers and in my own head:

"There are so many people so much better than me, I could never be that good."

This is the struggle of almost every artist I've ever known, that uncertainty of whether I'm improving or falling behind. It's easy to look at my peers and wonder if I really stand on even footing with them. It's easy to curse that I didn't start earlier when I see an artist years younger produce a piece I wish I could have made. It's easy to look at someone's yearly skill progression and wonder why I don't improve so quickly, what I'm doing wrong. It's easy to see just how long there is left for me to go, and feel terrified that I'll sink before I can ever swim so far.

But when I look at that reference page of my first fursona, when I gaze to that ink and colored pencil on paper, I can't help but be shocked by just how far I've already travelled. And it makes me almost giddy to consider. "If I've come so far in only seven or so years, imagine how my art will look ten years from now! Imagine twenty! Imagine forty!"

If you truly don't enjoy art anymore, fine. You're better off without something that only hurts. But if you do enjoy art, if you love creating and you wish you could just get your ideas out there for people to see, if you WANT to reach that level you've only dreamed of, and then push yourself even further beyond that.

Then don't give up.

There will always be people better than you. There will always be people faster than you. There will always be people with a bigger following. But understand that as artists, we're playing the long game. We iterate, we learn, we experiment, and we rest, not for the sake of what we're making now, but for the sake of what we'll make seven years later.