Long ago an art teacher told me, "DON'T DESTROY YOUR WORK...no matter how awful you think it is."
I wish I had followed this advice about my early work. When I began doing portraits, I burned the ugly ones in the fireplace. I must have gotten lazy but a few of them escaped destruction and I recently "rediscovered" them.
Every now and then I get frustrated because I think that my work is not improving at all...in fact, sometimes I feel as if I am rapidly going backwards.
Anyhow, what a treat to see my early work again as I had really forgotten what it looked like. In viewing some of this awful stuff, I discovered that I have indeed made a lot of progress and found this to be encouraging.
I was also pleased to see that the places where I bogged down and got stuck are a breeze to correct now. As crummy as some of this work is, I can also see that there was some "talent" there...even though it wasn't apparent to many others.
I have some of these paintings in my studio (turned to the wall so that I cannot be blackmailed). Every now and then I take a peek and pat myself on the back because all those years of hard work eventually paid off.
Hang in there.