Why “Just Draw Everyday” Is Hurting Artists More As an Advice

VANIA ANDANI PURIDA (30802300005)

Figure. 1

Source: Artsology.com

“Just draw every day, and you’ll get better.” This was one of the advice I was given frequently wherever I go when I was just a beginner at creating art, and it's not just me.

That phrase is often said across art communities and honestly, became some sort of "common sense" thing among artists of varying levels. One of the base idea for this advice is from the motto “Not a day without a line”, or in its latin version, “Nulla dies sine linea”. It comes from the Ancient Greece painter Apelle of the 4th century BC. A Roman author in the 79 AD, Pliny the Elder, even relates to it for his discipline, saying that "...it was a regular custom with Apelles never to let a day of business to be so fully occupied that he did not practice his art by drawing a line...”

Okay, it's a reasonable and believable idea, so what's wrong with it? Well, what if this well-intentioned mentality is actually doing more harm than good? Besides, you have to remember that this is was an ancient mindset in the form of a short sentence, it's something that can be interpreted more differently. Even Pliny the Elder's discipline was not one-to-one to Apelle's words.

To give some merit for my previous hypothetical, I'd like to take you, my readers, to deeper dive into what it means to "not let a day go by without drawing a line", or more clearly, the difference between a mindset and a mentality of "just draw everyday" as an art advice.

The advice itself is primarily targeting towards artists, especially beginners, who wants to improve both as efficient and effective as possible, I was one of those as well. Here's the thing, what do most people think that goal of "improving" means? Well, I interpreted it as making better art faster. 

Amanda Gore, an Australian physiotherapist, remarked that "A mindset is [...] a collection of beliefs. Beliefs are just thoughts arranged in a pattern!". While basing on the Psychology Lexicon Website, "Mentality refers to a person's way of thinking that influences their [...] attitudes, [...]". A mindset is how your attitude view things, while a mentality is how you approach one's thinking.

This is what I mean of the "just draw everyday" mindset is; an artist way of viewing the improvement as getting better but faster; again, well-intentioned. However, this is what will ended up causing any artist to develop the "just draw everyday" mentality, and this is bad. Why? because while approaching this view comes from a result of encouragement, this way of thinking very oversimplifying and over-boarding the process of making art. I used to be caught up in the web too.

How it does is it leads artists to base their approach on a fantasy-like foundation in the hopes of getting better on a short notice. It's a self-inflicted frustration because of the way most art community had treated as a rule rather than a suggestion. "Just draw everyday" is a rigid advice that makes an artist skill's growth worse, or even stunt a beginner's, into encouraging burnout, mindless daily act without resting, and the illusion of quantity.

    Encouraging Burnout

According to Psychreg, a reputable digital media company surrounding information's on health and wellness, burnout is "a state of chronic physical and emotional exhaustion, often accompanied by feelings of [...] detachment from work." This is a common consequence that I experienced the most. I used to force myself to draw everyday, no matter what the subject is, as long as I met the quota.

Obviously it made drawing a chore, and with any artists that doesn't know any better, treats their own exhaustion as improvement. Honestly, even if one has a goal of what to draw in mind, this isn't some sort blue-collared job; it's an advice that involves using creativity juices everyday no matter how small. Overtime, this can cause burnout by turning genuine attempt to be better at art faster into something stressful mentally and even physically.

    Mindless Daily Act Without a Rest and Reflection, Don't Ignore the Utilization of Muscle Memory

Based on the Oxford Dictionary, muscle memory is "the ability to reproduce a particular movement without conscious thought, acquired as a result of frequent repetition [...]." While beginner artist may not have the same experience with building muscle memories for making art, they're still subjected to building them; a repetition of drawing an imperfect circle can build to it. But what does it have to do with the advice's push towards mindless acting?

This argument was inspired by one of my favorite artist youtuber by the name pikat. She's a professional freelance artist who used to do concept arts for Riot Games, and had actually attempted a 30 day "just drawing everyday" challenge video to study figures. What she learned was that, she had started doing a "mileage mode" starting on day 14 to approach making art repeatedly everyday without an injury risk, as she reported that her wrist was hurting during the middle of the challenge. She also commented on how the act of drawing is hard because, for a professional like her I assume, you have to always think about perspectives and shapes.

So as to not fall for the "mindless repetition" pit, she only relied on her muscle memories and refrain from fully focusing. Wait, how is avoiding a focusing mode strays away from the mindless repetition? I observed it's because her mileage mode means to draw without  memorizing any new stuffs, so what she meant was avoiding "mindlessly" absorbing new information so much so she could be resting. So then, what's the point of not fully studying art during the challenge if the advice's goal was to improve better and faster? This is my point; the "just draw everyday" advice is a mentality that's SELLING the idea of constantly frying the brain for "improvements" without letting the creativity rests. This advice doesn't utilize the skill of muscle memory to lessen the burden because it hurts "improvement" of an artist.

    The Illusions of Quantity that Lead into the "All or Nothing" Mindset

The Cognitive Behavioral Therapy Los Angeles Website stated that the all-or-nothing/black-and-white thinking is "one of the most common and impactful cognitive distortions [...] in which people view situations, themselves, or others in extreme, absolute terms." While I've never dug deep into this pattern of thinking, there's no doubt that believing in improvement through quantity alone leads into the one-sided "if you can't draw everyday, you won't be good" ground.

As such, I'd like to look up what other people think of this. One of them is Kenzo, a reputable artist of Love Life Drawing channel on YouTube, who gave a neutral insight of the advice. He commented how this "myth" (what he called the advice) has some truth, saying that doing more practice has always been a reliable answer to not get stuck at art. However, he also says that to do "more practice" is to be accompanied by the right type of practice that's not as fun. I share most of his sentiment, but what I didn't agreed with is the need to compensate the already rigid state of the advice into something more arduous.

Yes, practicing more than once will build your skill as an artist, that I understand; but the argument lacks a nuance that is going to be present when attempting to truly "just draw everyday". Artists wouldn't always have the time/place to spare dealing with "finding the right-and-not-personal practice", let alone doing it everyday. Yes, this a less fantasy-founding base of an art advice and obviously, improving at art isn't an easy journey and will involve challenging moments with the search for a practice, but I'd like to reiterate; the advice is leading into a mentality that's SELLING artists the wrong idea of improving by making the "daily" part as what counts, NOT the amount of art you're doing, NOT the amount of practice you do, no matter how right and miserably grounded the experience is.

Now that I've laid out my arguments, here are some alternatives I've done as a strategy to improve better at art without the true restriction of the "just draw everyday" mentality while still embodying the mindset, they're fun for an artist's development and personal growth too!

Art Challenges: Find yourself some art prompts that correspond with anything you like and participate in doing them. Sometimes I join something to doing specific-interest week or month long prompts, where for that period of time, there will be a prompt to do art related to whatever that interest is. Not only are they incredibly fun, they stay as suggestions to the improvement of doing art everyday. While they don't fully help artist's skills much, they do so much for avoiding burnout because they're stress-free.

Skill-Based Goals: While goals of improving skills are there for the "just draw everyday" advice as well, being skill-based allows artists to focus on either be static or fully delve into new territory or a combination of both. The way of achieving milestones in this type of goals are more flexible as it never hinges on a daily frequency. I've done many auto-pilot exercises of making cute expressions on characters doing a drawing exercise, and I've also done an improvement in anatomy by learning many body types. My favorite has to be absorbing new information of a culture's outfit aesthetic then getting so obsessed with it that I've began muscle memory-ing it.

Feedback and Resting: Obviously, when you get feedback and away from your pieces, you'll get a new perspective to your art and grow to be more positive or mindful on your improvements. Sometimes it's not just about the amount of art, not just the destination of the goal, but always will be to take a step back and do something else. As much as I love art, I'm not even pursuing a college education for it; maybe it's different for other people, but this way, I don't have to worry that not reviewing my work or not taking a break as much won't quickly kill my skill development.

 

Of course, a persuasive argument won't be as convincing without discussing about the other side, so let's talk about the one that I often though about when I was a beginner. 

“Many professional artists has gone on record to draw daily.”

I always believed a novice's artist most biggest reference and inspiration to improve is through seeing and imitating professional or bigger or any artists that started dong it long before them. Obviously one might argue that actually having one's own discipline to improve is much more foolproof, but I guarantee that artists are likely to be born out of a response to the outside, including seeing other people's skills or journey. Like, seeing them draw your favorite characters the way you like them makes you motivated to try it too. 

Now, what if they DO promote the advice of "just draw everyday". Of course, we've already learned about not treating that mentality as a gospel, But, they do have MORE understanding and/or experience in art right? Differing opinions exist obviously, but surely the advice has more truth to it; maybe they don't buy the selling of the mentality, but instead only use the mindset to ignore making the "daily" merit to play a part in their improvement and putting more importance on true practice.

...Yes, you'd be correct on that assumption. Which is why I'd like to refute that argument in quotations, they say to just draw everyday, but most fail to mention that the practice should actually be personal, not stuck to one rigid practice, and most of all, random as hell. The evidence and arguments I have been providing all share on thing, the more you do the mindset of the advice, the more you fall into the hurtful mentality, and the only way to bypass the negatives is to make the most of its daily time, but only ended up hurting an artists skill/well-being.

Experienced artists doesn't equal good art teachers, so I'd like to bring up one. A professional American artist by the name of Scott Christian Sava discussed this on his YouTube channel. He had a great insight on how those artists didn't mention them, "What most great artist forget to convey is that when they do those, they should be focusing [...] about exercising their brain to draw EVERYTHING and ANYTHING." Those thigs included not just a specific studies or scribbles one like. When you draw without a thing focus on, your brain unconsciously goes on a "no thinking hard"(the mileage mode from before) and the information when making art, as an action being repeated, is teaching the brain creativity to associate it not as a chore but something that helps improve better faster without compensating quality as mindless quantity that encourage constant injuries and a black-and-white thinking. When the advice is fundamentally bad, artists should try to deal through it with fun.

“Just draw every day” was never meant to be a chain. Yet somewhere along the way, it became one—tethering artists to unrealistic expectations, joyless routines, and the illusion that quantity alone creates mastery. The truth is far more human. Growth doesn’t come from grinding yourself down, but from understanding your own rhythm: practicing with intention, resting without guilt, exploring without pressure, and learning in ways that nourish both skill and spirit. When we let go of the harmful mentality and return to the original mindset—one of curiosity, consistency, and freedom—we rediscover what makes art worth improving in the first place. In the end, becoming a better artist isn’t about drawing every day; it’s about drawing in a way that keeps you growing, thinking, and loving the craft.