Please be patient with me, I have an extremely hard time with self expression 
I am not good at like, observing a thing and putting my interpretation onto paper. I try a lot, but it never meets my (probably impossible) standards. This really started to frustrate me recently, so instead I started just drawing interesting shapes and filling them with patterns. The image attached to this post is an example of one.
But now I have these little sketches that look cool to me but feel unfinished. I don't know how to develop them any further. If I try, I feel like I ruin them.
And then it dawned on me: I don't have a fucking clue what I'm doing. I've been trying out art as a fun hobby for the past 2 years. I read a couple of textbooks and took notes, I've filled a few sketchbooks, painted a little, and had a great time. But I can tell I'm still shit and I want to be good. How do I do that? I guess I have a few main questions:
-What should I spend my extremely limited practice time on?
-How can I incorporate the things I like about others' art into my own? Do I just straight up try to copy them?
-Some people I've asked irl have said it's just a matter of time. I haven't been creating long enough to be good yet. Is there any truth to this? Am I just impatient?
Here's some more of those weird sketches if you're interested. I can also post some more uh... grounded? art for comparison?
spoiler
Let me show you some of my artworks:
There's lack of depth to them. It's possible to tell I lack confidence by the way the brushwork is done. There's a very noticeable lack of depth and especially the Monotone one is really suffering for how flat it looks, it could have bene improved by adjusting the direction of the "hatching". It's possible to tell that I am either lazy or rushing in a lot of places too. Like how poorly the grass is drawn in one of them.
It's important to keep in mind what kind of community you're sharing your art with, when you look for feedback. It's very easy to get torn into shreds by fellow artists, if you do not, then you're probably not interacting with artists. Pretty much everyone can tear each other into shreds no matter how beautiful your art piece is. It's also very easy to get showered with compliments, if you stick to fandom communities.
Why do you want to do art? Getting good enough isn't an issue, you can do that with practice, the problem is - what's your goal? If you spend your time building fundamentals following the steps you've been suggested, but your goal is to be "popular" it'll help you, but even someone as terrible as myself could be popular with a focus on marketability and communication skills. Similarly I could feel "at home" surrounded by masters, who enjoy telling me how dog poopoo my art is, and then seeing me apply their lessons in my work.
I don't think there's any correct path, artists who claim that (imho) have an insecurity problem. I also personally wouldn't take advice from someone like me, there's a ton I still need to work on myself and I wish you good luck on your own journey.
Thank you for sharing with me! I really like the monotone one! I can see what you mean about depth but I think the line work juxtaposed with the big expanses of black and white in the umbrella and background make the character really "pop" for lack of a better word.
I think I'm doing art because I find it difficult to express myself in any other way. It's the only thing that has felt right, or at least not wrong. I am pretty uncomfortable with most other forms of expression due to some personal issues.
I wonder if I could find a local community of artists or maybe take some classes. The internet/social media always seems so high stakes for some reason (except for here)