StyrbjornAndersson

Something has been eating at me, for as long as I can remember and with increasing magnitude. It is this sensation of genuine, lingering discomfort when it comes to drawing, during artwork creation as well as during elementary practice sessions. The most severe ramification of this affliction has been an extensive hiatus when it comes to most things artistic. My dread of drawing overshadows my love for the matter, and I keep making up excuses for putting art aside - "I am more of a programmer anyway", "work and family is more than enough", "I need to start working out first" and so on. Yet again, I return to DeviantArt, realizing that my last "motivational entry" was written over a year back. The question arises - will I EVER become good at this?

While things appear rather gloomy, I might have found a solution to my predicament, and it all started when I stumbled upon this Youtube video called "Iterative Drawing - The Fastest Way to Improve", by Sycra: [link]

Much of what is discussed in the video really resonated with me - especially the part about the balance between analysis and intuition. Shortly put, analytical artists tend to approach art in a structured manner, relying on tutorials, guides and/or references, while intuitive artists have the ability to create good art without necessarily being able to explain their process. This is certainly a simplified way of categorizing people, but being extremely analytically biased I started to realize what my problems might be.

Problem one - Cheating!
Looking back, I have pretty much always "cheated" at art - I have relied on grids, references, tracing and pretty much every technical shortcut there is when it comes to everything from realistic portraits to manga art. Being somewhat versed in 3d modeling, I have preferred creating 3d models and tracing them, rather than actually Learning figure drawing. While this has smothered my ability to draw comfortably without any of the aforementioned methods, it has lead to me producing things that people seem to find qualitative (people pay for portraits, I sold quite a lot during my only exhibition etc.), thus leading to a vicious cycle of me adhering to the path of least resistance to gain both real and virtual "likes".

Problem two - Problem solved!
Being analytically inclined, I tend to like problem solving, and I have regarded art as a problem to solve, rather than a life long journey of self improvement. I spend pretty much no time practicing, and way too much time figuring out how to cheat most effectively.

Lifting the curse!
Given the situation I have described, I think the solution might be easy. I simply have to drop any pretensions of creating good looking art, and pick up a habit of drawing basic stuff on a regular basis, avoiding the cheats I've grown accustomed to and get a lot of mileage. This will undoubtedly lead to a decline in apparent quality of my work, but at least I can seek comfort in the fact that whatever quality I manage to produce will be the genuine result of my own skill (or lack thereof), and not artificially procured by taking shortcuts. This will be my analytical approach to become more intuitive, and I hope all goes well!

/Styrbjorn

I might have skipped a day of drawing, but other than that things are proceeding as I hoped. The lesson learned so far is that I should probably focus more on one topic at a time. Jumping between stuff makes it harder to get into the flow of drawing habitually. Therefore, for some time now I will focus on gesture drawing. The goal is to be able to accurately capture the feeling of any pose in less than 30 seconds. Based on what I have read, heard and seen it should be perfectly possible, but it will still be challenging since I am usually way to focused on details. It'll be good fun, hopefully

In his latest book, 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos, Jordan B Peterson touches on the subject of habits, and their impact on success in life.  He establishes the routine as a fundamental stepping stone to improving, regardless of what your goals might be. This is a concept that I have processed intellectually, but it grieves me to say that I have never been able to internalize drawing as a habit in practice. Therefore, drawing has never come natural to me. To this day the process of placing that empty paper in front of me (or creating a new file in Photoshop) has been intrinsically associated with anxiety and fear of failure. This HAS to change, and here is my plan for doing so.

Part of "the plan" is to be goal oriented, while at the same time addressing any hurdles that pose a risk of giving up. Firstly, let's take a look at what I want to achieve.

GOALS

I want to become self sufficient as an artist. While I am certainly able to create work of some quality at this time, it doesn't come natural for me to do so, and I lack consistency. The ultimate goal for me is to end up at a level where I could work professionally as an artist. That freedom, even if I never pursue that path, would be immensely welcome.

HURDLES

Lack of fundamentals leave me at "square one" pretty much every time I start a new project. Given that I am very technically inclined, I tend to look for shortcuts at every step of the process (such as using 3D software for posing and scene building). This can of course be a great supplement to an existing workflow, but in my view it should never become a substitute to a firm grasp of the basics. All in all, the lack of consistency and self esteem leaves me anxious and fearful each time I go on an art spree. In the end, those feelings bring me to a point where I don't do any work at all for several months.

SOLUTION

I will draw for at least one hour, starting at the same time every day. To aid me I will set up a schedule (to be posted later) detailing exactly what to do on a given day. Exercises should vary, but be focused on the fundamentals. At this stage I want to get to a point where producing rough drawings come naturally. Hopefully this will turn drawing from something exotic, foreign and frightening to something as menial as brushing my teeth.

Schedule coming soon. Please wish me luck!

So, I decided to volunteer as an elector judge in my municipality during the election to the European Parliament. It was quite interesting, but really time consuming and exhausting. Given that I have aspergers syndrome, all the social interaction involved really made a dent in my creativity during the last weeks.

Now that the election is over my energy is coming back, though, and I'll try to draw at least something this evening

One week has passed since I "returned" to deviantART with the intention to draw at least a little bit every day. So far I have actually managed to reach that goal, which is positive. 

Yesterday I made an attempt to make a free hand figure study (without reference), figuring that one week of warm up should have made some positive impact, but that caused me to crash straight back into reality. It was so hard, and the result was not at all what I had hoped. 

I'll try to keep my spirit up and keep practicing. Eventually I have to get better