That went well. When's the last time I kept a promise I made for myself? I wouldn't know. I've been through this cycle so many times.
Predictably, I didn't follow through with what I planned to do. It's become a bit of a huge mental block at this point so I occupied myself with other things in the same boat. That is, drawing.
Back at the start of this year when I cut my playing time and picked up programming I also sought out drawing as a sort of life skill. Nothing transient like focusing on scoring for games, right? I started out lost and focused on a random book. I'm drawing a huge blank as I try to create a list of what was on it without looking at it, but I remember doing a daily exercise on creating dots on a sheet then trying to copy it over on another sheet to improve your ability at estimating space. I remember feeling discouraged over being off by a few millimeters most of the time, but if I kept doing this then a few months down the road I'd be able to judge whether or not I was improving. Of course, that didn't happen because I didn't keep up with that practice.
I moved on to "Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain" by Betty Edwards shortly after. The tone of the book was much more personable which I guess works better for someone like me who's intimidated by the entire craft. I read it from page to page and performed the exercises when they showed up, and all the while there's the doubt that always lingers in the back of the mind. Perhaps I'm not actualy learning what the book is trying to teach me? What length time that's estimated for one activity would take me twice as long to accomplish, being slow and deliberate and not what I believe to be in a good way. The feeling of being engrossed in the work and feeling refreshed afterwards doesn't come to me (well maybe the first one applies a little). I just feel stressed during the ordeal and exhausted afterwards. It's a book that could be covered in a five day seminar and I was drawing it out over a few weeks.
Starting from the first book to this one I kept up the practice of drawing for only a month. After finishing one more exercised I just stopped. It's not like I wasn't a little impressed with what I created, but I never really believed in what I did. I was just copying stuff. Which was the whole point of the book, anyway, drawing what you see. I can look back and say I should have stayed with it; there was no reason not to. I simply failed to make a habit of it before I gave up.
For something I wanted to be a hobby I wasn't enjoying myself just yet, and I think I do get hung up too much on the future. I could use a few pointers from the games I've played so much. When I started playing the Touhou series was I worried over what I might accomplish or when I'll be able to clear the highest difficulties? Nope, I just took it easy and slowly ramped up the challenge...maybe too slowly. I do steer clear of a lot of the hard stuff, but what I do play I stick around with and slowly improve on. Hell, I even left this as a replay comment back in the beginning of 2009:
"...it scares me very much when I try to accomplish a feat I know I cannot consistently achieve (especially stages 4 and 6) with my level of playing, but I still do it anyways with the silly thought that I can leave it behind me when I make it to this point, that I don't have to worry about improving because I'm really not getting better. But it's getting there, there has definitely been change for the better but I'm still looking at the negatives of my performance. "
But I've apparently forgotten about my mindset back then and I'm back to stressing over how terrible my drawing abilities are and how I have to make up for all the years I never drew anything. It's all in the past; it's no good to run through the what-ifs.
I did pretty much nothing in the drawing department for the next seven months, then in the middle of September I started up again. I'd say I'm even less dedicated than I was back then. Now I can't seem to sit still for more than 20 minutes, and there's still some days when I don't draw anything. My mind wanders so much. It's...disconcerting to think about. Something is still better than nothing, and there's no secret to it. The more you want out of it the more you'll have to put in. I just want to slowly try to enjoy myself and not end up dropping everything again.
I debated whether or not I should share pictures while I'm doing this or wait until I deemed them suitable for public viewing. I had a similar situation with the Touhou series where I knew about this forum for a few months and its scoreboards, but I didn't show my face until I could 1CC my first game on Lunatic. But, well, your levels of self-criticism scale with you and waiting on drawing skills to advance to the point where things "turn out right" would be something for a few years in the future. So yeah, whatever! I'll insert them at the end of posts or something. No expectations; just a guy who posts whatever he wants on his personal blog.
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| Portrait of Igor Stravinsky |
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| 16th century drawing. |
Starting off are some upside-down drawing exercises. Not the exercise the book throws at you first, and I'll probably share the scary drawings that came from that later. For now I'll cheat and make myself look better than I really am by showing these copies of someone else's drawing. I forgot the path I took for the first picture, but you can see how the right arm looks horribly distorted. The book did warn against outlining then filling in the blanks or something along those lines. Small errors will add up and culminate somewhere. I guess the head was one of the last parts I did since I wasn't mindful of my proportions and it went straight off the edge of the paper.
Did the knight a little later as an extra. I mean, the book does encourage doing the exercises more than just once, but yeah. I guess I didn't date the first one when I took the picture but it was 2012-01-30, and then the knight was 2012-02-01 as it says right there.
Yeah, I posted a little early then edited the rest in so I wouldn't have gone through October posting nothing. Also, the thing I didn't do would be the next exercise in the book. I have the paper toned and everything since two months ago and never went through with it.
