Does improving in drawing differ than other hobbies?


Threadmeopen's avatar
Hi everyone,

Well I'm confused today, so I need your help to clear it all up.

Ok well I have been focusing on my younger sister because I noticed that she highly improved in crocheting and very rapidly in such little time. I have this quite feeling of jelousy, but she is my sister so that should fade away. Other than that is, why did she improve so amazingly in just a year ex. She started with normal crocheting like hats and simple things and right now she is working on bags shoes and dresses.
Is there a diffrence between improvement with crochet and drawing, because I have been drawing for years and somehow by watching this happen I feel like this is not enough. I know It is wrong because thinking like this will cause my confidence to corrupt and there will be a lack in which I wont have the spirit to draw because I think that I am not good.

So my question is how did my sister improve so amazingly?

If it is about practicing, then yes practice has a high part in improvement but put in mind I practice to.
Does anyone feel this way to?

Thank you for your time.
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RavynneNevyrmore's avatar
Is she following patterns and executing them very well, or is she creating brand new things with no instructions?

The former is replicating. The later is creating.

The equivalent to your drawing would be if you traced or copied an awesome thing drawn by someone else, versus if you drew something from your own imagination. Obviously the thing you copied would look more impressive than the ting made from scratch, because the only part you actually affected was the execution. The composition, the colors, the line quality, etc. were all things determined by the original artist and you just copied those parts.

Similarly, the designer who creates a pattern determines the lines, the shape, and the method. If a picture is provided with it and your sister uses the same yarns and colors then even the color and texture is determined by the designer and not the crocheter. She is only responsible for the execution of that particular piece.

I have to explain this to my mother, a seamstress who was very good at executing patterns and never designed anything, whenever she tries to compare her art to mine. :dummy:
Threadmeopen's avatar
Yes she is following patterns :-). I draw from my imagination. Haha thank you very much for your great comparison. I guess your mother feels the same way I used to, go calm her down :-)
shannor's avatar
Crocheting is a self-correcting art form. If you mess up, what you're making won't work, so you'll have to unravel to the point where you screwed up, and try again.

I've been struggling with a fish bottle holder I started crocheting from scratch for a while now. I have multiple color changes to contend with (not something I've practiced before), multiple increases and decreases, and non-straight edge finishes to do, as well as worrying about directionality of stitches with all of that mess. If I mess up, it won't look right. Once I've figured it all out, I'm sure I'll be able to make a second, a third, and many many more far more easily, and each one will be quicker and easier than the last.
Kaida-22's avatar
In the words of Bob Ross..."Talent is a pursued interest, anything you are willing to pursue, you can do.” It's all about the time and effort you spend on something.

Personally I think your just not seeing how much you have improved. It's a lot easier for us to look at someone else and say "holy crap you've gotten so good at this is such a short amount of time!" and never see it in ourselves because we are our own harshest critiques.

I bet if you ask your sister she will say shes not that good because she's looking up to better crocheters (sp?) and trying to get to their level of ability. You can't see how far you've come because your too busy looking at how far you have to go yet. I bet your sister can see how much you improved on your drawing skills over the years!

Look back some day on your REALLY old artwork and compare it to a recent gallery piece of yours...you'll see the improvement! You obviously always want to strive to improve, but if you constantly compare yourself to other artists who are at a higher level...all your going to do is depress yourself with your seemingly large "lack of talent" that's actually all in your head!
Threadmeopen's avatar
Haha yes, your right. My sister does say so, she does say that I have highly improved. Yes I check out my older drawings once in a while to get my hopes up, you know what I mean. Right now I'm spending about a year practicing drawing and sketching nothing serious inorder to get to the desire I want. Yeah I know that and I try to stop :). I asked my sister how she became really good in crochet and she answeres something very very different than what I had expected such irony! She said that "Before I learnt to crochet I was jelous of you because people like your drawing and always tend to give you much more attention than I so I thought if I could beat you than I wouldnt feel that lonely feeling anymore". So I think the jelousy thing turned out to be very good... but seriously I will never hold a grudge or such feeling towards her. So how can I beat her to this game of hers? I want to feel that winning feeling again lol.
Kaida-22's avatar
Maybe it's not about beating the "game," but about enjoying your hobbies together! Maybe you could do a collaboration! where you draw the subject and she crochet's the background around it with cool sunrise colors or something like that. Then you can say "look how good WE'VE gotten! and what WE can make TOGETHER!" Granted a collaboration with a crocheter is probably difficult, but just an idea! Maybe you could also draw something for her and you could ask her to make you a cool hat/scarf! This way you guys could get that "winning feeling" together.

Since your the older sister, you may have to take a bit of a hit on this one and talk her up to your friends/family/relatives so that she starts feeling more involved and less overshadowed by you. (something all older siblings probably have to do at some point)

I hope you guys can fix your competitive relationship, or if not fix it, keep making sure that it's a healthy competition and not one based on jealousy! :D
Threadmeopen's avatar
Haha don't worry I encourage her as an older sister really!
All my friends know she crochets and she has alot of fans :). She is to busy with customer servicing than she is with me. She sells her work to people, but she still does not own a shop which hopefully she will in the future. Yes, I do ask her to make me "cool things" aswell but she doesint give me more attention then customers since I live with her, but that isint the real matter. Yes when it comes to these things I can be competitive but I cannot help it. No I was never jelous :P

But I really do thank you for your support and understanding and I will do what you say because it's the right thing :)
Kaida-22's avatar
I'm glad! and I hope that you guys' relationship improves because of it. My older brother and I don't get along and once i became an "adult" I never really felt any respect from him as I always felt he was just waiting for me to fail. I wouldn't wish that kind of a relationship on anyone, and although ours has improved over the years, there are still things preventing our close relationship.

Btw...does your sister have an Etsy shop??
Threadmeopen's avatar
Sorry but not to bother or anything but what is Etsy shp?o
Kaida-22's avatar
Etsy.com [link] is a website for people who do crafts to sell them. Your sister for example could make a "shop" and she could upload pictures of items that she crochets and set a price for them. It's set up through paypal so when others view her page and if they like something they can order it from her directly off the site. She could make some extra money this way! There are tons of people on it and they make some really cool stuff! I'd have her check it out!
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Glori305's avatar
Crochet has some self correction built in. If you are doing something wrong, the finished item will not work.

Drawing does not. You can draw an elbow joint incorrectly 1,000 times, and unless someone is helping you look, you may not realize that the elbow is why the arms on your charachters look off, and keep working on hands, thinking hands are the problem (this was a random drawn out of the air example, I have not looked at your gallery)

Also, is she on any online groups for crochet? It will be a smaller community, and quite frankly high level crochet/knit people are more interested in getting new people into the hobby than high level artists. And does she go to a local stictch and bitch type thing? Because newer crochet people will have a bunch of help from a bunch of experienced people, which will also help her improve quickly.

Then there is a laid out progression in crochet. You start with this, and move on to that. While you CAN find a laid out progression for art, most people do not follow it. I am willing to bet that you did not start with simple geometric shapes, move on to draped fabric over simple shapes and still life, and then move on to more complex items. If she tried to start with bags, shoes and dresses, it would have taken her a whole lot longer to improve. It's harder to learn when you start with advanced things.
Threadmeopen's avatar
No acctually I started with simple things and then harder and more complex things. Sometimes I do try to draw things higher than my ability just to see how I am going with drawing. And yes she does have groups and does communicate with people who crochet. She communicates with many people who crochet inorder to become succesfulin what she is doing. I agree with everything you said before and I did notice that whenever she does crochet she notices the mistakes immediatley because she knows and has the idea of how the crochet pattern will turn out to be. Yes, when I draw sometimes I figure out that the anatomy or facial expressions on the picture is off, after I finish it and take a long good look at it, or if someone just points it out. The problem with me is that she knows many people who crochet face to face and I dont because not many draw they share information about the same topic, but thats not a big problem since I have the Internet but I wouldve liked it if someone had the same intrest you know what I mean?

And haha I dont really mind if you checked out my gallery I do have mistakes and alot but I had the guts for putting them online lol.
Thank you for pointing out
Glori305's avatar
Just did not want you freaking out over elbows and hands, since it was a random out of the air example, I actually did go peek at your gallery, but that was after I made the comment.

Check out meetup and see if there are any artist groups meeting in your area, you might be surprised.
Threadmeopen's avatar
Haha I thought so because there was an elbow in my gallary haha. Well that was obvious I think you need more work on that so others do not notice :P. I'll try checking that out thanks. Overall thank you for your time for checking out the elbow and correcting me lol and also for reading the thread and helping me :) you have my thanks.
Glori305's avatar
Remember also, your sister is working from patterns to make her things. This is kind of like you working from tutorials.

If you looked up tutorials that you liked, and followed the tutorial step by step, you would get a very similar result to the original. She is doing the same thing. For some reason, this is considered ok with crafts, and not ok with drawing, and a crafter that is making their pattern from scratch rarely gets the extra credit and attention that this deserves.
Threadmeopen's avatar
Yeah, true so.

I also thought the same thing. I never liked copying in drawing because I used to think that it results to nothing, so I always tried to create another way to draw the picture in my head. I wantched many tutorials just to keep track of what one should be careful on, but this month I have to urge myself to draw because everytime I want to draw something it ends up bad, and sometimes when I get to the middle of my drawing I stop and other times I just have no idea in my head about what to draw. Its just the smae pic on and on. I think it is artist block and I want to get rid of it. I want it cured. Hhaah do crocheters get crochet block?
Glori305's avatar
Can't speak to crochet, but with knitting I often get hit with a version of single-sock-syndrom where you have made one of something that should be a pair, and are tired of the pattern and do not want to make the other.

I was fighting that with a sock, by moving on to giftmas presents and then going back to the second sock, but now I am having problmes finishing the second mitten of a pair for my MIL.

I would suggest that if you are not drawing every day, you are not going improve as quickly as your sister does as well. The days you have block, and can not think of what to draw, follow a tutorial step by step, or take a photo you like from the stock gallery and draw it as realisticly as you can. Or just do practice of what is around you.

Did you start with basic geometric shapes, balls, spheres, cones, cylander, and spend a week or so shading and drawing geometric shapes? If not, when you have drawing block, take a week off and draw shapes. You can find cylanders in tolilet paper and paper towel rolls, food boxes will be rectagular prisms etc.
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IncandescentInsanity's avatar
Crocheting and drawing are two vastly different things
monkeydoodles's avatar
Effort is good, but intelligent effort kicks butt, and this is true for absolutely everything. She's been doing at least a couple of the following things, if not all of them: looking at finished works and analyzing them, talking to other people who crochet and picking up tips, reading magazines and websites about crocheting, trying out new tools and techniques, and never giving up.

I've never crocheted a thing in my life, but I know that if I approached it like that, I would get pretty good. It's the same way for drawing and everything else.
Threadmeopen's avatar
Yeah she does ask and check out magazines and alot of things for crochet and my Mom is even helping her because she loved crochet after she saw the effort my sister made. The problem with myself is that I don't ask many people about drawing anime and manga because firstly not many people I know draw so there is not much competetion and secondly I am kind of shy to show my effort :) I know that if I get over my shyness I might become a better drawer but for now I need to find someone and be convinced.
siantjudas's avatar
It'sbecause the crochet spirit possessed her and made her poop out amazing shit.
like a boss.
Threadmeopen's avatar
Im waiting for the drawing spirit to posses me but apparently they say it sleeps for years for only the unique my catch it :P