The first two images are so vastly beyond anything I've even attempted to create that it's not even funny.

Do keep in mind both those "before" images are both images I drew while explicitly attempting to make something remotely showable/good. Both are from after years of doodling and getting 'mini' lessons from a childhood friend. At that point I still thought I completely sucked. And those are probably the best things I did :P. It's also worth noting I actually took an art class at my community college, which probably upped my skill a bit.

don't have the patience to create art because I know how shitty I am at "art things" and attempting it seems like a waste of time and resources. I'm sure if I sat down in a class or with a book, I'd be able to produce something more than a pile of crap, but as of right now, I can't even close my circles when I draw them, so they look like a squished grape or something.

Yup. I suck with a pencil. And your "magnificence" is pretty much what a good majority of my stuff looked like. The latter two images you saw both took well more than an hour to produce. While the former two probably took maybe 5 minutes.

Either way, just slow down, take your time. Some quick tips are to draw 'with your eyes' meaning don't draw what you think you see, but draw what you see. And be generous with the eraser. Digital makes this a lot easier (just press 'undo' :P).

Once I got to those after images I'm like 'oh shit', and it sort of clicked that it's not that I can't art, but rather I didn't art. Here's another one I did, which I don't really like:

It's all about slowing the fuck down, removing mental barriers of "I can't do this", and generally applying techniques that are used to create specific looks. That, and actually looking at something while you draw. Drawing from your mind is damn hard.

As I said, if you're interested in getting better at art, just set aside an hour a day at least to work on it. Perhaps grab one of the art academy games. It takes a lot of time, and a lot of patience.

I find it jaw dropping that some people spend well over a dozen hours on a single piece. Getting over that lack of patience is difficult. Especially when you come from a "write a few lines of code and see results." mindset.