swigganicks

I've been having an issue lately with my artwork. The problem is that I don't try to take on different types of subject matter (architecture, people, water, cliffs, etc.) because I'm afraid of it looking shitty. I know that if I try to paint them, they'll be horrible, so I don't paint them, but then I never get better at painting them, and it ends up in this vicious cycle of stagnation in my progress. I hate producing something that I know will look bad, but how am I supposed to get better if I don't? For example, with those thumbnails I did, I had to trash about 60-70% of my very cool ideas just because they included some element that I'm no

Hearing people tell me that I was a good artist always left me confused. I never considered myself an "artist" (not that I didn't think my drawings were good, they're freaking awesome). An artist to me was someone who produced art that combined technique with creativity. All the pictures I drew were from near constant reference to an image or photograph. There was no creativity involved, just meticulous replication. This got me thinking, does the requirement to be an artist involve some element of creativity? One of the reasons I stopped taking art classes was because I often struggled with projects that required me to produce something that