Learn from yourself by revisiting your old artwork

One of the most common exercises artists do to see their own improvement over time is to revisit their older work. It can be incredibly inspiring to see how artists we look up to struggled in their early days as we did, and see how they made improvements and changes to be better artists. Such examples prove that hard work is the key to getting better.

While looking at revisited art from accomplished artists is inspiring, this little exercise is good for us to try as well. Revisiting our own artwork can be a great way of checking our progress as artists and establishing where we are in reaching our goals.

Jennifer Ober, a graduate illustration student, decided to revisit an older drawing from 2011. Ober said, “When going through my old sketchbooks, I came across a character design that I was, originally, very proud of. I had drawn it within a few months of starting college and I knew it was time to see what had changed in my work.”

Ober took the the original idea but approached it again, using the skills she had developed since. “I was amazed to see how all the long hours of study had paid off. However, the experience also showed me what I still struggle with and what I needed to perfect,” she said.

Take a look at her old drawing from 2011 on the left and the revisited version on the right below.

By taking old ideas or artwork, we can find inspiration to create new work, but more importantly, we can discover our abilities as artists, identify our strengths and weaknesses and continue to improve our skills.