what do you do when you're disgusted by your art?

see title. i've become absolutely disgusted by my digital or traditional art and it's really sad. i grew up constantly drawing and designing characters, and then over time i've become less and less happy with my art... i know nobody's perfect and practice helps you improve and all that, but nowadays i get so frustrated and genuinely disgusted with my artwork that i avoid drawing for months at a time. which i'm sure isn't helping me improve... i just get so sad about how much time i've wasted being sad already, and frustrated that i can't express myself the way i used to. i *want* to draw, the idea of it is fun and i'd like to show people the stories i have in my head, but... i'm in this awful loop of being frustrated at how bad my art looks, and then not being able to draw because it makes me so frustrated. the whole thing's really awful. i've been considering getting back into drawing pokemon since that was my biggest inspiration when i was younger, but it would definitely have the same result and i just don't know how to cope when drawing upsets me this bad.

Whenever I'm not proud of a drawing, usually I just step back for a little while (even if I had plans for other drawings the next day or something), finish up a few other things, then draw a different character instead of trying again. A little while ago I tried to draw my character Fen but it turned out horribly compared to the drawings I had made right before (I was on a good streak...), after which I stepped back, finished a character design I had been stuck on, did some other stuff, and then drew the new character and he turned out amazing. Taking breaks is always a good idea if you feel demotivated, otherwise you're just forcing yourself to do it without having any fun. I have drawings I really want to make, but because of current events in my life I just have no energy for it. So I'm just playing games, building in terraria, designing a new character or two, and while my reference images for one of my upcoming drawings are still open I won't use them until I'm back on track mentally, which should hopefully be sooner rather than later. At the same time, sometimes the only way to get out of no-motivation-land is to just go for it anyway, usually by starting simple and working back to your normal skills. Hopefully this helps, even if only a little. Editing to add: This might sound odd, but I'd also suggest keeping old drawings stored in their own folder away from newer ones, that way if you ever feel your current art is bad you can look at the old art as a reminder that it's not as bad as it used to be!

thanks, it does help a lot. right now i can't decide if i'm at the point where i need to just push through it, or i should take a break entirely. i think after reading this i've decided i'm gonna try one or two more times to just go for it anyway with some simple things like you mentioned, and i think if that still has me feeling sick i'll take a break i guess. that's actually a really good idea. i'll have to figure out where best to store it but this might be helpful for me. thanks a lot /gen

Stuff said drawing into the furthest depths of a virtual/real folder and never look at it again. Or delete it :D

whenever im sick of bashing my head against a particular piece i just... pull out mspaint. it's strange but all the pressure i put on myself just disappears when i use mspaint, probably because its such a simple program and no one expects masterpieces from it :') its kind of refreshing tbh, i like my mspaint art because its more messy and dynamic than my usual stuff. so yeah, take a break with mspaint! you'll feel less pressure to make "good" stuff i think!

I hate my pfp. I force myself to like it by goggling at it for hours. i actually quite like my pfp now.

keeping old drawings away from newer ones was a really good idea, thank you for that. i think it's helping me a lot.