How do I make the 50% rule work for me?

If you enjoy the process of drawing, then it should not matter if what you draw looks like literal heaps of garbage. You'd be having fun no matter what.

It sounds like you are putting an artificial limiter on your own mind. You are saying that the rule is "it must look good, or else I am not allowed to enjoy the process of creating it". It does not HAVE to be the rule. Kids draw all the time, and they never care whether it looks good or not. A toddler can crayon in an abomination and have the time of his life doing it. That's your goal. To capture that joy.

The objective in the end, of course, is to have fun AND draw gorgeous stuff, right? We all want the same! But you seem to believe that first you need to have technical skill, and THEN you can worry about "enjoying yourself" or whatever. That is upside down. Learning art comes AFTER loving art. Because, to become good, even geniuses NEED many thousands of hours of grueling work. And no amount of determination will be enough to convince you to spend those 20.000+ hours doing work that you don't find enjoyable. It might be possible with god-tier patience and willpower, but I bet that virtually any artist who is miserable when they draw eventually gives up being an artist. I met several people with the attitude of "I need to learn art as if I were studying medicine, I need to be PERFECT technically BEFORE I can start drawing what I love." None of them ever drew what they loved, because they all gave up within years of the learning process.

Everyone's idea of "drawing what makes me happy" is different, so I can't guide you there, you have to find your own. For me, it's writing stories then illustrating my own fictional universes. When I was younger, it was hanging out with friends, making up fictional universes and characters together and drawing them. We drew them very poorly, yes, but it was fun, and it fueled me to still draw, 15+ years later, now with much more technical skill.

/r/ArtFundamentals Thread Parent