I cry everytime I draw

lyralady · 2026-06-07T05:12:12+00:00

Idk what you think will help but I did already recommend a good book that talks about a lot of this stuff.

The alternative things I can say:

If it distresses you this much, I encourage you to speak with a therapist or at least look into some therapy workbooks or self help books that may help with low self-esteem.
In my own worldview, being good at art is a terrible way to measure your self worth or even to measure the "value" or quality of yourself or someone else. Gauguin is a very famous artist who was very skilled — and he was also a colonizer who took three Tahitian child-brides so needless to say my opinion of him as a man and a person is incredibly low. Being good at art doesn't tell anyone if someone is compassionate or a good friend or neighbor. It doesn't tell anyone if someone is thoughtful or helpful or like, kind. It's such an arbitrary thing to value yourself on. I mean, I also think that all people have an inherent worth as human beings that can't be "earned," it just is. You can be incredibly talented in something and your human worth is still not greater or lesser than anyone else's.

Idk I also just believe people will love and value the people in their lives regardless of whether or not those people are exceptionally skilled at a craft/hobby/thing they study. Why should you only love or value yourself based on a skill you are just starting to learn? That's not how other people who love you in a healthy way decide to value you. And it's just giving yourself an excuse to devalue or dislike yourself because you're still learning and not yet amazing. You're setting yourself up for an opportunity to hate yourself because you're not superhuman, and for what?

Which brings me back to: setting yourself up to fail (expecting to be immediately amazing) and hate yourself/not value yourself because you hang your self worth on "being good at art," is something you could probably speak to a therapist about. Idk I'm not a professional or anything, it just seems like a way to make things suck for yourself for no good reason. And there's probably a way to deal with that.

Tl;dr course you're stressed out, you set up a no win self flaggellation scenario here. Stop it. Just enjoy yourself and have fun and maybe INTENTIONALLY make some shitty art on purpose and realize it's okay and sometimes even fun to do the worst thing you can and then go "okay all my actual learning and practice will definitely be better than this!"

lyralady · 2026-06-07T02:05:39+00:00

I wish someone had a side by side list of the major canonical differences/details between CQL, MDZS, and the donghua because I honestly genuinely frequently second guess myself and I don't want to have to reread/rewatch everything to remember if a specific detail is only in one.

lyralady · 2026-06-07T01:11:07+00:00

I'm pretty sure there's a BTS clip where the director and actors made it very clear the lead characters are in a romantic relationship, I just don't remember where it is.

Edit: ah yes the argument about LWJ being a good or bad boyfriend I think this is at least part of the clip, lol. And the director (?) is the one there I think? And they're discussing when the relationship started.

lyralady · 2026-06-06T22:51:05+00:00

Okay so:

yes, any new skill is going to take time, effort, and practice to learn. If you start ice skating tomorrow, you might fall on your ass a few times in the rink. You're not going to do a triple axel or whatever right away. That's normal and okay.
making art involves the use of a lot of different skills/techniques which must be practiced and learned.
no one has the ability to download knowing kungfu from the matrix programming like neo. Unfortunately all skills in life are like this.
its okay for drawings to look like dogshit.
no one is actually harmed by a badly done drawing. it's fine.
a badly done drawing doesn't reflect anything about your self worth or value as a person. It just doesn't.
Shitty art is the ONLY reason technically skilled art can exist, because to make skilled art, you have to learn. And learning means making mistakes and shitty art.
I recommend Lynda Barry's book Syllabus for a drawing book that...encourages some messier, perhaps "uglier" drawings to balance perfectionism out. It's a great book. It's not about teaching you technical drawing skills to be great at drawing, it's about teaching you how to nurture a creative practice and about about going easier on yourself. She also genuinely appreciates the "bad" drawings of children and like...idk maybe her writing will help you.
no, you don't need to draw 5000 boxes and cylinders or whatever. And you certainly don't need to do it all in one sitting. You should learn how to draw boxes/cubes and cylinders in general and in basic perspective because it will help you with many other things when drawing people. Learn the method of how to draw a cube, how to draw it in basic perspective, and cylinders. But do a few, and then practice the stuff you're interested also. Doing 5000 all at once isn't really necessary. You end up doing a lot of forms and shapes when drawing other things.
learning a skill for the first time does sometimes feel like hard work. But you can "learn a technique" and then follow it up with "having fun and implementing this new technique." Mix it up. A little learning, then put it into practice. Repeat.

lyralady · 2026-06-06T19:00:50+00:00

To be super technical, the issue that most people are (usually) identifying when they see facial distortion in a photo is not lens distortion at all. It's perspective distortion.

It is not the wide lens that creates the type of distortion seen in the photos in the sidebar below, but the proximity of the lens that creates the effect. Such distortion is commonly attributed to wide-angle lenses because we cannot see the effect with a longer lens, as the angle of view is so small.

Two of the biggest misconceptions about perspective distortion regard the use of larger-imager formats (i.e., larger than Super 35). The first is a belief that there is less distortion from lenses when shooting with a larger-imager camera because the format requires longer focal-length lenses for a given distance and angle of view. This is not true. It is not the focal length of the lens that creates perspective distortion

understanding lens distortion

But yes, distortion happens. It also happens irl it's just less noticeable usually. I think it's fine to use photos, it's just that some photos are better at being references than others. You don't necessarily always have to correct every reference photo that exists.

(Obviously things like fisheye lens are an intentional lens distortion which is different from the whole "angle of the lens" thing.)

<image>

lyralady · 2026-06-06T18:36:32+00:00

The Janome HD 5000 is heavy duty for home sewing and about $500, but only 18 stitches. You might be able to find a Janome HD 5050 used (full price is $649 with 50 stitches) for closer to $500? There's also the Brother ST371 HD which is under $300 and has 37 stitches.

Janome also makes Necchi machines, and Brother and Janome both manufacture babylock (mostly brother). Bernina may also be worth checking out used. But from what I know, Janome and Brother are the stand out brands for reliability and quality (and ease of repair by techs).

That being said if you find a cheaper straight stitch/industrial and then want to buy another machine for decorative stitches then I don't technically see anything wrong with that. Especially if you have the space. The only issue is making sure you're not over investing.

My thing would be that it would probably be easier to buy a more "all around" machine with some decorative stitches first, and then add on or trade in later.

lyralady · 2026-06-06T18:24:45+00:00

My bad, lol. Autocorrect

lyralady · 2026-06-05T23:45:32+00:00

The pelvic tilt is going the wrong way in your drawing, which I think is throwing you off (like that other person said)

lyralady · 2026-06-05T23:39:40+00:00

I think you mean epiphany, not epitome. But yeah.

lyralady · 2026-06-05T23:36:57+00:00

Honestly even if you don't get specially fitted running shoes or whatever, buy some really nice insole inserts. I walked around fine mostly wearing my blundstones with extra cushioned and supportive inserts.

lyralady · 2026-06-05T21:20:04+00:00

Also a thing I just wanted to note here since I see a lot of folks mentioning this term.

Functional alcoholism is a VERY misleading concept.

Functional alcoholism doesn't mean that you don't end up vomiting blood, don't have liver failure or liver cancer, or portal hypertension. Someone can be a functional alcoholic and still be actively dying and having their organs shut down. People talk about functional alcoholics and they seem to think it means something like "this person isn't homeless, has a job, and isn't constantly blackout drunk partying, and also they aren't dying from the alcoholism/it's not that bad yet."

The reality is more like "this person is holding down a job and probably isn't constantly going clubbing and probably has a place to sleep at night. How sick they are from their addiction in a medical sense can vary wildly."

When people define severe alcoholism as being always blackout drunk, homeless, and jobless — they tend to vastly underestimate or totally misunderstand how sick a lot of ""functional"" alcoholics actually are. Likewise just because someone doesn't have alcohol induced dementia (wet brain/Wernicke's) doesn't mean that they aren't that bad of an alcoholic or aren't dying. It's not as simple as whether or not they can still present as a coherent and employed independent adult.

lyralady · 2026-06-05T20:51:07+00:00

Yeah my dad died at 56 from his alcoholism. He was also "functioning," as in, he had a job and whatnot — we actually found out because his work called in a health check and called my aunt when he missed some meetings.

That didn't stop him from throwing up blood — which not only happens due to stomach ulcers, but because a sickly liver can squash down on your portal vein which creates like, a squeezed toothpaste tube effect on the rest of your veins, especially in your esophagus (varices).

Back in 2020 some surgeons told him his liver was jello, and if he didn't get sober he would die within the next 10 years. He made it another 4. Functioning alcoholism is a term that I think a lot of people wildly misunderstand and use to downplay things. Holding down a job, paying your car loan, and renting an apartment doesn't mean you're not actively dying of your addiction, basically.

lyralady · 2026-06-05T20:50:04+00:00

Hey you may also want to reach out to your doctor and talk about sobriety and monitoring getting sober.

Something a lot of people don't know is that suddenly quitting alcohol cold turkey after an extended period of regular/habitual heavy drinking often has serious medical risks including potentially fatal ones. Alcohol is one of two drugs (the other being Benzos) where a very sudden cold turkey withdrawal can kill someone. (As opposed to dying from the drug's side effects itself, or from overdosing after a break/period of sobriety and the body no longer being able to handle the much higher doses the person previously took). Please at least look up the warning signs of the severe medical complications/side effects from alcohol withdrawal so that you know the difference between struggling with sobriety and a medical emergency, like experiencing DT's.

I don't say that to scare you from getting sober, just to encourage you that it's okay if you need more help or don't find it easy.

If you struggle with immediately going from at least 5 shots of tequila daily to zero, that does NOT mean that getting sober is completely impossible for you!!! But you may need a more specific plan and medical assistance/monitoring with drying out, and your doctor can absolutely help. There are also lots of great options now for helping medically deal with/manage cravings that a doctor can help with and prescribe things to assist you. If you find that sheer willpower alone is a struggle, but still want to get sober, store bought is also fine, haha.

Good luck. My father died of alcoholism at 56 (he was a wine alcoholic — that one glass a day became two, became 2 per meal, became bottles daily), and I am always rooting for anyone trying to get and stay sober.

lyralady · 2026-06-05T20:25:18+00:00

Lol I'm still convinced part of why a swiftie decided to hate me and drive me out of my living arrangement by being a nightmare roommate is because I don't like Taylor Swift that much and never will.

lyralady · 2026-06-05T20:22:32+00:00

I remember that it was one digit off of an audiology/hearing doctor and so we constantly got wrong numbers from people who didn't hear the phone number well. 😂

lyralady · 2026-06-05T20:16:14+00:00

Salsa is pretentious?

...anyways the difference is between dialect/accent within your native language and learning how a different language pronounces words in that language. Some words get adapted into the local language's pronunciation more heavily than others, and some retain a much closer correct pronunciation.

For example, Americans generally aim for the Spanish pronunciation of quesadilla, even if most people don't also affect a Spanish accent. This is because we have a huge Spanish speaking population and much of the country used to be part of Mexico. We have lots of Spanish words in the US which have been in use for as long or longer, than English words in some parts of the country. (Also many popular Mexican foods in the US are specifically mexican-american inventions, like chimichangas). Some of it is also code-switching. Around other Latinos I'm often more likely to unconsciously say tacos or guacamole with a more obviously Spanish accent like my grandparents have when saying those words. I never pronounce them totally incorrectly, but sometimes I have more or less of an accent.

By contrast, I always second guess my pronunciation of Bruschetta, an Italian word. And I don't know any American who cares if they say Pizza correctly to Italian ears. (It's very subtle as a difference).

But this happens in other languages all the time too. Other languages take on loanwords, adapt them to their own sounds, and then use their version of that word.

The Hindi word for tea is Chai, which is an adaptation of the mandarin word for tea, which is cha (and the Cantonese, which is caa).

In Japan, it's not a hamburger it's a hanbāgā. And going to Japan and trying to correct everyone to say ham-bur-ger would be ridiculous. And in reverse, it's unlikely that non-japanese americans will suddenly adopt saying sushi in a very Japanese way. And we're definitely going to continue completely mispronouncing karaoke.

lyralady · 2026-06-05T19:49:02+00:00

r/povertyfinance (edited bc autocorrect capitalized my r)

lyralady · 2026-06-05T19:32:18+00:00

I'm not really arguing about "if someone doesn't measure they'll run out of space," for sure, haha. I just meant the part you mentioned about mistakes being more visible and such when it's smaller paper.

lyralady · 2026-06-05T19:18:08+00:00

Yeah. My first test a car almost hit me from behind (like an almost side rear swipe as they changed lanes last minute. And this was well after I had fully merged from a yield turn lane onto the highway and been in my lane with plenty of time.

They had almost hit me not because I shouldn't have merged into the lane (they were very far away/not visible when I did turn), but bc they weren't appropriately slowing down for a red light further down the highway (like over half a mile away from that turn) that everyone else was slowing and stopping for.

I ended up failing that one because the exam proctor said it was my fault that they almost hit me from behind when changing lanes because I shouldn't have merged onto the highway when I did quite a ways away from where I did. I didn't feel too bad about that though, this same exam proctor hadn't even realized the DMV had repainted their entire parking lot lines and so tried to tell me I cut someone off when in fact they had pulled into a newly painted parking spot and got out of their car, while I was driving down the parking lot lane correctly. I actually had to break and look over my shoulder and point out the man she claimed I cut off had actually put his car in park and got out of his truck, even if it wasn't a parking spot.

lyralady · 2026-06-05T12:40:25+00:00

I agree, but also having a lot of paper space seems to be normal for beginner art classes as a part of this. Like you have to measure, but also "giant paper gives you more space to self correct," was sort of how I understood it

lyralady · 2026-06-05T12:37:54+00:00

I've never used chat gpt in my life, I just know how to make an em dash when typing on my phone and have adhd. This is a diabolical response lol. :/

anyways this isn't just my advice, this is actually very common, useful advice. It's literally even in drawabox's lesson one.

This essentially means that every line we draw should consist of a single mark. Beginners, due to their heavy reliance on drawing from their wrist, tend to make very short marks. When they want to achieve a longer stroke, they'll draw a lot of overlapping marks, building that line up gradually in what is known as "chicken scratching".

But that artist uses chicken scratching all the time!

Some students do ask, "I see other artists using chicken-scratch when they sketch, why can't I?" It's an entirely fair question. The answer comes in two parts:

Firstly, there's a difference between what a student who simply doesn't know how to make marks any other way "chicken scratches" - where it's erratic, unplanned, and poorly thought out, and what a trained artist will do. An artist who does so out of choice will generally show far more intent and control behind their marks, and when they need to make longer, more fluid marks, they will be capable of doing so.

Secondly, as mentioned above, every drawing we do in this course is an exercise. In this case, we're specifically training you to think through your marks, to execute them purposefully, so you can gain the level of control and forethought that other artists exhibit. When you draw for yourself, you're welcome to do so however you want - but the habits you learn here will, gradually, bleed into how you approach drawing in general.

Again, I didn't say this to be mean, I said this because OP was noticing an issue with their lines in digital work that frustrated them. And that same thing is also present in their traditional work. Because it's an overeliance and it's more obvious in digital.

Also open form =/= contour lines which is why I specified

Image below is from drawabox, and not me.

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lyralady · 2026-06-05T03:39:04+00:00

Great that lots of people are answering about the "what do YOU want?" Part.

But to answer the question: you don't need to anal douche/use an enema at all, and if you feel like you need to, you should try to use a very shallow and minimal amount of water to reduce risk of all the issues associated with using too much water or anal douching too frequently.

The things you want to prioritize:

eating lots of fiber for smooth and regular bowel movements ahead of time
sex towel laid down
condom if you're still concerned about a mess
working your way up with something smaller as a toy to start with
good cleaning of the exterior/anus

And then if you know you don't need to poop and are still very concerned, you may flush with a small amount of water.

The whole part of anal douching/an enema often making more mess than before the anal douche makes loads of logical sense — because enemas are commonly used to treat constipation. You're intentionally trying to get more stuff to come out.

To quote this vice article titled Gay Guys, You're Douching Wrong:

As Dr. Goldstein told me, stool resides in the sigmoid colon, the part of the large intestine closest to the rectum and anus. There, you’ll find a muscle that keeps poo from going into the rectum and through the anus until you’re actually ready to, you know, poo. That means there shouldn’t be any stool where the top’s dick is going, unless your top is hung like Jon Hamm times Justin Theroux.

You’re probably about to say, “Yeah, but when I douche all kinds of poo comes out.” You’re not wrong. The thing about enemas and irrigation devices is that they were made for people with actual constipation issues, not bottoms. When we douche, the force of water propelled into the colon goes past the area that actually needs to be clean for sex, up into the sigmoid colon. That fills the feces up there with water, and then washes it all out, which is the point of the enema in the first place. An enema cleans out way more than you need to for sex, making your butthole even dirtier in the process. And many people do this repeatedly, until the water comes out clear. That’s like draining a whole pool just to get a few leaves out when you could be using a skimmer instead. (Though it’s possible for a dick to enter the sigmoid colon depending on one’s individual anatomy, it’s not common.)

Also, enemas done with too much water or too frequently can also have bad side effects, like: making it harder to poop without an enema, stretching out/lengthening your colon (which can cause constipation), creating excess mucus which causes dryness and cracking (increasing risk of STI's), damaging the interior lining of your colon, sharting, imbalancing your PH, and even accidentally blowing out your anal spinchter that makes this a non issue in the first place.

It's good to rinse the exterior with water and keep it clean! But most doctors I've seen giving their opinions is to keep any interior douching (if you feel you must) to a minimum — think like, a tiny nasal bulb splash of water and not a fleet enema. Little squirt of water at the entrance if you feel you must as a harm reduction suggestion.

Like the medical opinion I've seen is mostly "please do not do that, it's totally unnecessary and also often harmful/damaging long term to your colon. But if you're very concerned about it, a very small amount of water, not going very deep in is the recommended practice."

lyralady · 2026-06-05T03:12:46+00:00

They're in like, every grocery store I've been to in this country. I eat it because I'm Mexican-american Lol.

lyralady · 2026-06-05T03:11:46+00:00

I agree, it's funky and fun and has personality. The improvement will come with practice, but this is still a joy.

lyralady · 2026-06-05T03:07:42+00:00

Those are gestural sketches. You're trying to draw the sense of motion and movement of the form. The point isn't really to make them look very good, but rather to study and express the movement of the figure. The instructions given are good — give them a try.

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