120 sketchbooks + thousands of loose drawings later… why do I still feel like I suck?”
I’ve been drawing for about 8 years now. In that time, I’ve collected around 120 sketchbooks and filled probably 80–90% of them. On top of that, I have thousands of loose pages—printer paper, random sheets, anything I could draw on.
But I only started studying seriously around 3 years ago—anatomy, perspective, fundamentals, all that. Before that it was more casual, just filling pages.
The thing is… I still feel like a beginner.
Logically, I know I’ve put in a lot of time. When I look back at old work, I can clearly see improvement. But it never really feels like enough. My standards keep going up faster than my skills, and it’s like I can’t catch up to what I think I “should” be able to do by now.
I struggle a lot with perfectionism too. I’ll redo sketches, avoid finishing things, or feel like studies don’t count unless they’re “clean” or look good. Sometimes it makes me hesitate to even start, because I already feel like it won’t meet my expectations.
It’s frustrating because I enjoy drawing, but at the same time there’s this constant feeling that I’m behind or not where I’m supposed to be.
Is this normal?
At what point did you stop feeling like a beginner, or does that feeling never really go away?