This is true, in the sense that I have literally never seen cringe-worthy gifted fanart that looked like the person had spent a lot of time and effort on it. I've seen fanart that wasn't very good but that clearly had a lot of effort put into it, and while it didn't make me like the art, I also didn't cringe and get second-hand embarrassment either.

The embarrassing stuff always looks like the person spent about twenty minutes on it.