how do i get more confident in my art?

confidence is a big thing i lack when drawing, and i feel like it really makes itself evident. im nervous about stepping out of my comfort zone and trying new things to draw because i know ill be upset they don't look right first try, unfortunately. ive been trying to work on this, but in the meantime, any advice?

So for starters, it can help to realise that nearly everyone feels this way. Even people who have been drawing for years professionally. I am not a pro myself, but I've sure watched enough content from pros to know that they say that all the time. If people didn't feel nervous, everyone would be drawing all the time, akin to how we are as children. 

So, obviously, since limited experiences, children have no judge of if their art doesn't match what they were attempting to draw, they just do it. Unfortunately, as you get older, that sense of 'it just doesn't look right' starts developing and that's what puts people off going any further with art. That, and obviously combining that with the social ideas of 'talent' and occasionally bad experiences of feedback. 

However, if we didn't have that sense of 'it just doesn't look right', we would also all still be drawing trees like lollypops and humans who are bigger than those trees and the houses they supposedly live in, so it's a double edged sword!

The overall advice I've found from many, many hours of content I've consumed, and not just related to art but literally any hard endevour (including STEM subjects such as engineering and computer science) is get used to the feeling of failing as quickly as you are able to. Because if you can pick yourself up from that and keep going, then not only will you learn extremely quickly, you will be doing what a majority of people give up on doing almost at the start. A good quote I saw was 'A master has failed a thousand more times than a beginner has'. 

So that's all good in theory, but the emotional burden can be quite heavy. In my experience as a beginner, I do three things currently to combat that:
1. I do drawings without references or tutorials where I try my best to connect to the child-like 'I want to draw that' and just fill a big page full of ideas and sketches of things, most of which look bad but at least get the idea across, and see what I really struggle to draw. In this way I learn what I really struggle to recall from memory, AND I realise that my brain isn't just boring, I do actually have some pretty wild ideas, I just can't draw them that well yet. The only thing about this process, especially at the beginning of trying it, is that it can feel extremely frustrating and make you anxious. See 'Draw a Box' website for this idea, he suggests making 50% of your time in drawing dedicated to just doing this and talks about it at length.
2. I have a lot of books, websites and places I can go for tutorials, and I do them regularly for that 'instant win', because that takes all the brain work out of picking colours, compositions, etc. out of the picture so you can just get that feeling of making something and having a good result at the end. Another easy win for me is drawing birds, I absolutely love birds and I draw them well because I've practiced them a lot, so I will do this for that instant good feeling too.
3. I study concepts and then try to apply them. For example, I use Line of Action and other figure drawing books to study people and their shapes. Because my thought is if I can draw people well, anything else I learn afterwards will feel a lot easier. Or, if I've identified I can't draw something in step 1, I'll maybe study that (like I found out I can't draw dogs for example). This can be extremely heavy on my brain though.

The combo of these three keeps me going with drawing and painting. This is just how I deal with feeling unconfident, so you may find the specifics to be not right in your case and need to adjust some stuff. I've now clocked around 300 hours of drawing and painting, not including time I spent as a child and teenager as I have no way of estimating that, and I have actually found it significantly easier recently to just start and 'enjoy the process' rather than focus purely on the result. I now lose hours just drawing and painting and don't even notice the ugly stages as I go through them, and I often enjoy my results too even if they do look weird and aren't drawn accurately. I love being able to actually fill a sketchbook instead of them just sitting there unused the most!

The only other thing to say is, and this may not apply to you at all so don't mind me if it doesn't, I lost a lot of my 20s to endevours like this because I was struggling along with undiagnosed C-PTSD. I've also had 100+ hours of intense therapy at this point before I could really get started with art, as my reactions to failure were really quite extreme beforehand. So if you are finding no matter what you do, you absolutely loathe what you've created, and you can't find any joy in the process at all. Also especially if you find that your very ideal of happiness itself is tied to the thought of recognition as 'something', be it as an artist or whatever, then it may be worth seeking out professional help alongside of doing art. 

I hope that helps and I haven't rambled on too long ^^; Keep going, I'm sure you're doing great!

I agree with the post above !! to add to the childlike drawing thing, I am a HUGE perfectionist but I've been seeing artists say they start expressive and loose, intending to add structure and 'realism' later (realism is a goal for me but very far away LOL). I liked knowing that the structure and technical fixes could come later, I just dont want to be putting people on a blank canvas, so starting with an abstract mess can still add a lot of depth to whatever is put overtop. I never wanted to be expressive in my art because that isn't what I enjoy looking at, I started being inspired by the D&D player handbook.

I've found success with planning the structure, and then going nuts overtop with experiments. I think having an emotional connection to the art is effective in making yourself feel pride or maybe even just nostalgia to the time I did the art. Trying to include things like my favorite color at the time, or a style I'm into, or even an intention/affirmation I like a lot if I'm feeling emotional lol In my experience, it FEELS so static in the moment, but a year later I'm a whole different person and can remember when I was OBSESSED with pink and used flowers to symbolize how I was feeling lol It applies to sketching too, even writing down ideas and quotes that spark your interest can remind you of where you were at when making it. 

I've found it makes me look back more fondly, especially because I'm so focused on art I rarely journal/take memory photos/etc. Going through old sketchbooks isn't an opportunity for me to critique my old art anymore, it's just me flipping through memory lane :)
Instead of remembering everything I got wrong, I remember the moments that I tried something weird and it gave me an idea, or if something didn't work, well it was worth trying !! That started to build my confidence that I can create things I'm comfortable with, not necessarily proud, because I probably have too much of my value as a person tied to art and my progress lol. This is coming from someone who recently loosened up from the structure and anatomy books I've been pouring over the past few years, mostly by experimenting with WHEN I experiment and let things be in the ugly stage, instead of putting pressure on it working out or looking good. 

I also have found a lot of success trying to focus my energy on allowing my art to start super bad, like comically bad. I'm not sure if you've come across Zezhou Chen before, but the way they show the development of the paintings was SO helpful for my silly, stubborn, recently found to be autistic, brain. If I haven't seen an artist do something, I have a lot of trouble convincing myself it will turn out.

Sometimes when I'm staring at a blank page, I force myself to draw the fastest face I can ((just a lil :) and a circle)) and take a 5 minute break, then when I come back the goal is to fix the bad face, which feels SO much better than just trying to do it right the first time.

I have an ADHD/Autism cocktail going on in my brain so the 'project' approach has always been signing up for failure for me, but treating it like something I'm doing to archive things I enjoy and prioritize what my eyeballs like, has made it a little more exciting for me I think. Worst case I dont like it halfway through and just go nutty with colors to see if it sparks anything, if not, that's ok, practice is practice, wisdom is gained by trying and failing IMO so if it's hard to stay confident, keep trying!!

what is confidence?
a feeling. 

when do you feel confident?
when you believe in yourself and your capabilities and picture successful results and appreciate what youve accomplished and find things to be grateful about whats been done and whats been learned. you recognize that you are good enough now, and that you will continue to get even better the more you learn and do.
they imagine praise and compliments. they imagine awards and applause and sales and recognition. they imagine winning what they want to win.
they are in a habit of making themselves feel good.

someone who lacks confidence, is thinking negative thoughts and imagining negative outcomes, such as, ill never get better, i suck at this, it looks ugly, its too hard, i cant do it. i should be better, im not good enough.
they may project past incidents onto their future by recalling moments they were insulted or felt ashamed, etc. 
they are in a habit of making themselves feel bad.

feelings are largely determined by what thoughts we think, and by what pictures we imagine, and what stories we believe about ourselves.


each of our life stories make this varying levels of difficulty to change, when we truly decide to notice and change our patterns. 

its up to you to do what you will with that info. 
there are plenty of resources out there to help you when you are ready to help yourself.

one of the best is self hypnosis, where you put yourself into a relaxed state and think and imagine and especially FEEL FEEL FEEL the positive thoughts/changes/outcomes you now choose for yourself. with 10-20 mins a day of this positive emotional day dreaming seeing yourself and what you do as good, you can begin noticing a difference in your automatic thoughts in as little as 3 days, and real differences in 2 weeks. ideally you will do it for 10 mins each when you first wake up, the middle of the day, and again as you are about to go to sleep, but doing ANY, once per day, will begin to transform you.

this works in all areas of life.

you were given the desire to create because the world wants and needs your creative vision.

i wish you the very best.