I completely understand what you’re describing here. Personally, I’ve been (and sometimes still feel) in that limbo of not feeling like I’m improving, or not seeing progress in areas I’ve been practicing for years. I think it’s something that happens to some people, and it’s more common than it seems. I’ve met others who feel the same way. At this point, I think the best thing to do is try to understand why this happens and do a bit of self-analysis. You mentioned that you can’t draw unless you have someone else’s artwork in front of you, and I’ve been there too. What you should ask yourself is: why does it work when you look at their work? Not in a way where you compare yourself (because that usually makes things worse, haha), but in a way where you try to figure out what works and start reverse-engineering the artists you like. Then apply what you learn to your own work, whether it’s technique, line quality, brushwork, etc. Taking the time to deeply study other artists and apply what you learn is always valuable (even if you still need to look at their work to keep your goal in mind). Another thing you can do is give feedback to others. It genuinely helps a lot! You end up learning differently because you have to solve other people’s problems. For example, while repainting your piece, I learned more about how skirt folds behave in that position, things like tension points, compression, etc. That’s something I didn’t really apply before because I didn’t fully understand it in my own drawings. The same goes for the angle of the head, those kinds of angles have always been challenging for me. It’s also good to revisit fundamentals from time to time. You never really stop learning from them :) Hope some of this helps! Best, Fosco
