Sometimes you gotta look at something you just drew and say “Wow. I’m the artist I wanted to be a few years ago. There’s a new artist I want to be now, but I made it this far.”
And that’s a beautiful thing.
This is really, really important! When you’re just getting started you can idolize or even despair of ever reaching a particular goal or milestone. But if you’re not careful you might not notice even when you’re miles beyond that!
And if you’re goal oriented and maybe a little insecure a trap can be “well yeah, but I’m not as good as so-and-so” or “yeah, but I still can’t do XYZ.”
Case in point: I never thought I was a good guitar player cause I couldn’t play as many notes per second as the 60s guitarist John Mclaughlin. And to be honest I still can’t play that many notes per second. It took decades of saying “I’m not very good” before I realized that
a) I’m actually a pretty fucking good guitarist, and..
b) Who was that teenage wannabe who imagined “good guitarist” meant “play eleventy-thousand notes per second like John Mclaughlin” anyway?
Don’t let the search for the best drive out appreciation of the good!