RIDGEFIELD, CT — It was during quarantine, and Instagram user @misuixs was frustrated with her progress. She kept thinking that every artist she saw was way more skilled than her. “I got overwhelmed by jealousy a lot due to artists being way above my level,” she states. “Which caused me to stop drawing for quite a while.”
When COVID-19 hit, many artists like her found themselves house-bound. In the midst of a pandemic, they doubled down on their creativity. Gradually, @misuixs noticed something: she was spending more time on her art and starting to improve rapidly.
Left: Misu’s art in 2021. Right: Misu’s art in late 2019 (Photos courtesy of @misuixs).
Quarantine has affected many people in different ways, including artists. The time spent indoors may affect their skills due to the increased amount of time they spend practicing. For social media artists like @misuixs, @plsforfeit, and @qweenlex_art, quarantine has really been an opportunity to work on art while in lockdown. Many artists, including @misuixs, decided that quarantine has really helped their art. @misuixs’s style is really bright and uses a lot of color. Her style is a little unpolished, and her shading is blocky but in a good way. She spent the majority of the time in quarantine just studying anatomy, she said, and she started to test other artistic tools that she hadn’t worked with before. Looking at the old art versus the newer art on her Instagram grid showed a very obvious increase in quality.
Asked if she improved her art during quarantine, she stated: “I did. Quite a lot, actually. Quarantine has given me the time to learn and improve. I’ve also learnt a lot from other artists from giving me tips as well.” She thinks that she improved more during quarantine than she would have under more normal circumstances.
Other artists agree. User @plsforfeit said: “I think [my art] has improved during quarantine, the reason I believe this is because the time frame we were not able to go out, I spent most of it drawing.” They added: “This gave me time to play around with new techniques and styles, eventually carving into something I liked.” @plsforfeit’s style involves a lot of lighting and painting, blending together into an entrancing mix.
Instagram user @qweenlex_art, whose name is Lexi, used quarantine as an opportunity to work on art while in lockdown as well. Lexi’s art saw a lot of change throughout quarantine, the shading improving dramatically and the overall feel seeming more natural. “Original TikTok and Picture was made on April 4th of 2020 (During the Beginning of Quarantine),” she captioned her post. “Now it’s February 5th of 2021 and I have done nothing but get better.”