This weeks update is about committing to art. Tutorials and how-to’s are fine if you’ve got the drive but as most of you know it’s not something that comes easily. So let me break what I know of it down into sections.
Inspiration
Most people confuse inspiration with motivation. They are quite separate! That said inspiration has its place but is unfortunately a double edged sword as time dwindles so does your inspiration. Though it can be VERY strong at first It can often dwindle.
That being said if you are inspired do not snub your nose at it. There are times you will not really get to chose WHAT inspires you and you may even hate the subject at first. I know this seems crazy but it’s very possible. Inspiration come infrequently so closing the door on something your not initially fond of could hate you down the line as you meander with no clear vision. Art can often feel like your riding different waves of inspiration, picking up a new one when the other one trails off.
To help ensure you in a good spot with inspiration, make sure to probably organize things that inspire you and to maintain your connection to your muses.
Motivation
Essentially revolves around your desire and willingness to do something. This isn’t necessarily attached to inspiration but can seem similar. You can be inspired as all hell and have zero motivation to do anything with that inspiration. Motivation is the soft dough-boy cousin of Discipline. If you are new to getting art done, harnessing and maintaining your motivation will be your something you will develop over time and will be much easier when your inspired or like the subject matter.
Fact is though motivation can only get you so far and it could be sufficient for most people. When you drive your art forward based solely on your willingness to draw you can have wild erratic growth as you only tackle those things you are willing to tackle.
Discipline
This is the one you earn tooth and nail and let me tell you it can be brutal. It’s definition is LITERALLY the opposite of fun. You are literally doing things you may hate doing or know you MUST do to get other things. Studying for subjects you hate often needs discipline. If you don’t have deadlines, classes, or teachers and only have yourself to deal with it can be near impossible.
Let me say this. As a person who USED to be exceptionally lazy and undisciplined YOU CAN earn this trait and it will be tough. It works a lot like muscle building. You can’t just do a bunch of weights and call it quits waiting for muscles. You must commit to doing this and earn and keep your growth and focus.
Each time you make an excuse for not doing something you need to do to earn something greater, the weaker your grasp on what discipline truly is.
Distractions
You are going to have to learn to play some games with yourself because regardless of how much you FEEL you should just be able to ignore distractions you simply cannot. You may have to make GREAT sacrifices. You may have to get rid of games, chairs, sofas, tv, steam, etc… You may have to wage psychological warfare on yourself.
Here are some of the things I’ve done to reduce distractions and improve output.
1) No TV or Couch or living room setting. I simply do not have a place to lounge so I don’t. I’ve replace it with walks and 20 minute time naps (PLEASE time your naps to 25 minutes tops trust me)
2) Pomodoro / 25 minute unbroken work cycles. Do yourself a favor and read on pomodoro. You don’t have to follow it strictly but the most important part is ensuring you do 25 minutes of unbroken work with zero distractions.
3) Decide what your doing at your computer BEFORE you sit down. If you cannot write down some tasks before you sit down you already know you are going to blow your time surfing and other crap. Commit to tasks BEFORE you put yourself in the distraction hot seat (computer).
4) Skype, Phone notifications as minimal as possible. My phone is on flash and my skype is on taskbar notification only. There is nothing more destructive to work then having your concentration broken ever 2 minutes. Work on this. It’s important.
Goals
It’s kind of silly but this is super important. Without a milestone or a goalpost it’s quite hard to judge your progress and it can sometimes feel your just meandering through art with no real purpose. This can kick your motivation in the ass and just ruin you. Make small goals first and learn to achieve those before you make larger ones.
Creativity & Vision
This is sort of important depending on the TYPE of artist you are. But if you are a non-technical artist and want to create what doesn’t already exist it’s important to really think about that. I feel that my best work involve bringing to life things in my head I have never seen anyone else attempt the way I am. I think it’s worth thinking about this and really asking yourself what do you want to see come to life.
Time
I’m sorry to say this but drawing… Takes time. Some people out there they draw 4 years and are just fucking amazing. Some take 40 years to make significant progress. Most of us are in the middle. You are looking at 10 years of commitment before you are anywhere close to being very confident with your art. That’s a long goddamn time and you may say “hey this guy took 2”. Well that’s fine but that guy ain’t you. Art takes time. Plain and simple. Learn to accept that time is an important part of learning and improving and won’t feel so bad about it. Learn as best you can the way that benefits you best.
Joy
I ignored this one for a long time, due to this it’s been somewhat hard for me to earn joy in drawing. I’d love it if every-time i drew my head spun from endorphins racing through my brain. For some people it does. For other it doesn’t. I feel that it’s worth attempting to find something specific that make you feel that joy. It will make the process of improving and learning easier and you will stick to art much longer.
Competition & Comparison
This is a biggie. Without getting too involved in this let’s just say this; Competitiveness can be both the worst and best thing for you and how exactly it can be good or bad isn’t something that can be controlled or predicted.
Most of you are going to compare yourselves I can’t stop that. I would say if you are going to do it, compare yourself with people who are near you level. This can be a lot more positive then comparing yourself with the most talented artists in the world. The disparity is so wide that there is no connection to be made. You will destroy yourself with those standards. Your best case is to find someone to have a bit of friendly competition with at a similar level to you.
It can also help to follow people who do things much different then you but they do those things well. There are many artists who draw a style I don’t want for myself but do things in a certain way. You can both improve without crossing over on the style or look or end result you both want.
Confidence & Ego
There has always been this concept that artist have ego problems. The truth is you need both confidence and ego to help you along the way and let me explain how and why.
Your Ego will provide you with a false sense of greatness. Peoples ego vary both on a person to person basis and on an daily basis. What ego provides is the unsubstantiated confidence to attempt to draw REALLY well when you are quite frankly quite terrible. It’s important for it to be there, without your ego you’d never get yourself to jump into thing you have no right to really attempt.
Time passes and ego fades. Based on your effort and progress you may have gained some grounds, heck you may have drawn something really good…But hopefully you have learned just enough to know how full of shit you where. This is good.
This is where Confidence comes in.
As time goes by you will EARN confidence. It’s important to understand that confidence is built upon consistent repeatable results. As you gain experience drawing and you learn to repeat the same results over and over you will no longer worry about that aspect of art. When you are no longer worrying about something and you KNOW it’s good this is confidence. Please do note that confidence in one self is subjective and the levels some of us need to reach to earn confidence may be quite varied. Confidence is truly knowing that you are doing before you do it without regretting it after you’ve done it.
Final Note
I’ve been drawing for a while. Off and on. I’m definitely drawing more now than I ever did when I was younger. Part of me still feels I wish I had committed earlier but several factors simply weren’t in play for that to happen. In the long run what has been most important is just…
Sticking to it.
