I'm starting to despise drawing.

[Tendo64]

In the past year, I've found myself drawing less and less often, because it feels like every drawing is harder to do than the last.

It appears my eye for anatomy is improving faster than my ability to draw, and it improved so fast that, one day I was drawing with no issue, the next day I completely hated everything I made and it took me forever to get it to look right. It only went from there.

My method to get things to look right is no longer consistent. I keep tweaking and tweaking until I'm satisfied, but this makes me take hours and hours just to sketch a head, all the while feeling miserable and not getting the enjoyment out of a hobby that used to be my favorite thing to do.

People tell me to "take a break!" But that's what I've been doing. At this point, I draw maybe once a month, and the problem isn't going away, it's getting worse. I know it will continue to get worse if I do this because taking a break is likely what got me into this trouble.

It should be noted this only really applies to the sketching phase. I love to color, and don't mind lining. It's sketching that I hate so much. But that's basically the only step I can't skip.

I don't know what to do. I don't want to quit drawing, but I feel lost and feel like I'll never enjoy making things again.

 

[Glossolalia]

Instead of taking a break from drawing entirely, it might help to shift your focus for a while. It sounds like you're hung up on perfecting your anatomy right now, but aren't making progress fast enough to feel satisfied, and it's taking the joy out of it. Maybe you could take this time to experiment with loose gesture drawings, or even do some more abstract work that focuses mainly on colour. Sometimes working on something related but different can get your brain working differently, and you can come back to anatomy later with a fresh mind.

 

[Pony Straponi]

Hey I am so sad you feel that way! I absolutely know how it feel to struggle about some kind of artist... impotence I guess. And great stress of self expectation at the same time.
And I agree with Glossolalia
If you feel that art-break isn't a way, I'd think of working daily, but the diametrical different tasks then character design, anatomy studies etc. And take one super clear AND SMALL task for a step.

 

[Paws the Opinicus]

Another thought would be something I should have done back in the 90s and never did: Delve into drawing things you've never drawn before. Take risks, make mistakes and all that. I had a great eureka moment *once* from that.... but sadly never got around to doing it again, due to nerve damage in my hands.

 

[Olivitree]

Seems to me like you need to practice less and draw just for fun more!
Practicing is great but theres no point getting better at something if you are just going to hate doing it. Get back into drawing things just for a laugh, don't concentrate on anatomy and stuff so much.
Give yourself a really short time limit to get sketches out, 30 minutes or something like that, don't let yourself spend too long on it, getting good at getting it right quickly is also an important thing, particularly if you don't enjoy that bit of the process.

 

[MissNook]

I've been in your place before (but for the refining/coloring phase more than sketching) and from my experience I began to enjoy drawing again by changing my way of thinking about the art I was making. I was putting too much pressure on myself for it to look right. But that made me spend hours on a drawing and not improving because of that. Sometimes to improve you need to just practice a lot of different things and just spending time into one drawing makes it harder and frustrating.
The idea of Olivitree to shorten the time you take on your sketch is actually how I did to enjoy drawing again (just for me it was the coloring and refining phases ^^). I forced myself to stop my drawings quicker and to speed up my process and I enjoyed it a lot more and improved a lot. I even didn't notice I was improving and it still happens to me. It's just practice and be curious to try things.

Also for a change of pace and if that's something you would like to do, you could try to do collabs with other artists with them making the sketch phase and maybe even the lineart and you do the colors. I found myself improving my coloring a lot when I was in a translation team for manga as a colorist ^^

Hope that helps!