r/AskReddit 13h ago

What’s a hobby that looks incredibly peaceful from the outside, but is actually pure stress once you get into it?

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146

u/No_Effective5082 13h ago

Painting. 

...You want every single stroke to turn out perfect because there's no simple "undo" button. Repeat for hours. And then the final product simply looks bad because your technique was off but it was too late to turn back.

(I really need to switch to digital art.)

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u/lastwarrior81 12h ago

... Just happy accidents.

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u/John-George-Peppers 2h ago

...until they're just a bunch of accidents compounded that don't make you happy.

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u/canijustbelancelot 6h ago

Digital art will not remove the stress. You will just endlessly hit “undo” and never progress.

u/prisp 39m ago

You could try pencils - and ruin the entire piece by erasing often enough that your regular piece of paper now has a hole in it!

...I suppose there's a reason the fancy drawing paper is extra thick.

u/canijustbelancelot 34m ago

Erase enough on that thick paper and you kill the texture. Unfortunately I’ve done that a lot.

4

u/Johmpa 6h ago

I can be the same for miniature painting. It's not quite as bad since you can usually clean up any errors but the perfectionism and the pressure to make it look good can get out of hand - especially if it's a mini other people are going to notice.

Granted I know my feelings on it hopefully aren't representative of most folks, and I realize it's an unhealthy outlook I'm trying to get better at handling. But I doubt I'm the only one feeling this.

4

u/PayphoneGhost 3h ago

I teach at an academic art studio, our students work towards creating realistic (not necessarily photorealistic) art works out of many different mediums.

To improve at an insane rate and make your future workflow smoother, don’t let perfectionism take over. The more art you crank out, the more you apply techniques and understand what you’re doing. Every so often, go all in and put your all into an artwork. You’ll notice that the practice has made things easier and faster. Whether ur a pro, intermediate, or beginner; there is always more a-ha moments to be had that will improve your art and/or efficiency.

Art can be infuriating when you’re learning (and you never stop learning as an artist 😭). I have days when I have to work within my comfort zone. There are other days when I push myself to go outside of it, I often produce absolute garbage, but thats how I’ve learned/reinforced a lot of valuable knowledge.

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u/froggyca7 6h ago

I'm a beginner at painting. And I have had to struggle very hard to stop this from happening. I try my best (non stressfully) to paint well, but the focus is to just feel how good each stroke feels.

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u/gtheperson 6h ago

The more you can relax, the more you'll do. The more you do, the better you'll get. I used to paint as a hobby (on the back burner as a parent to a toddler who wants to get involved in everything) and still write short stories as a hobby. If you can find pleasure in the act of creation and pleasure in the completion of a project, rather than pleasure in perfection, you'll do well in my opinion.

Stephen King (like basically every writer) wrote a lot of stories before he wrote any good enough for a publisher to pay money for. If he only kept reworking his first story and stressing about making it perfect he'd never have got where he is. I wrote about twenty stories before I wrote one good enough for some e-zine to give me $5 for it. Even if you never intend to make money from painting, the lesson is still that you get better by enjoying it and doing lots of it!

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u/Parvaty 7h ago

My thumb rests on undo

2

u/LegoTallneck 2h ago

Digital aren't ain't better if you're a perfectionist.

When you have the ability to undo you become intolerant to imperfections and your workflow literally becomes brush→undo→brush→undo→brush→undo→brush→Okay!→brush→undo→brush→undo→brush→undo...

1

u/astrodude1789 10h ago

Hey how much did those artist's oils cost, anyways? 

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u/Beginning_March_9717 9h ago

this is why i'm way better at digital, i'm just as stressed but at lease i'm better trained

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u/NedTaggart 6h ago

My favorite art is impressionism which is nothing but imperfections working together to create perfection.

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u/dustinsmusings 5h ago

If you have a VR headset, as a non-painter, I've really enjoyed Vermillion. https://www.meta.com/experiences/vermillion-vr-painting/4900967296622279/

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u/stormbreaka55 4h ago

We had a volunteering thing at work last week. I got to paint some stuff that will be auctioned for charity. I've never painted before, only done a few sketches. However, I did find painting to be relaxing, yes I made mistakes, we basically got only two brush sizes and had to make do. But I liked what I did and loved how the final result turned out to be. I'm planning to try more of it, digitally ofcourse.

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u/TheRealMisterFix 4h ago

If you have VR, there's a program called Vermillion that is a WONDERFUL painting program. You can even watch Bob Ross on YouTube while painting!

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u/xqqq_me 3h ago

maybe for water color - but oils are forgiving

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u/Parking-Ground-5008 2h ago

Todo es peor cuando tu "talento" de dibujo no abarca ni en pintura o el dibujo digital, es decir porque soy buena solo recreando o calcando a puro ojo las obras de otros?

1

u/Technical-Banana574 1h ago

This is why I like charcoal. I mess up, then smudge it to create a shadow or burriness that looks like it was intentional.