Growing Together

 Progress

Image credit: Creative Stall, PK 

Today we will be talking about my progress so far learning to draw, my set backs, and my plans to overcome said setbacks. I have been rather busy lately so the main setback we will try to focus on is time management when including hobbies. Another important topic I will be tackling as well is the idea of identifying ourselves and our goals, and the importance behind this.

As you can see from the image above the progress so far has been slow but steady when learning to draw. I have been stalling a bit and falling behind on the Inktober drawings as well as my daily practice. While trying to overcome this stagnation I came across and interesting concept. An artist friend of mine informed me of a practice he calls "don't break the chain", and this helped me immensely. 

Don't break the Chain

This is a nice behavioral method to stick with daily practice in anything you might want to accomplish that takes time. It was coined by comedian and actor Jerry Seinfeld to which he attributes needing it to make enough jokes for his act. The idea is to have a calendar that you mark off everyday once you have done your daily practice, drawn once, or in Jerry's case written one joke. the idea is to build a chain of days that you can see, and with each day added it should be harder and harder to break that chain by not commuting to what you set out to do. This was incredibly helpful and I highly recommend it so I will be leaving a link to it here: Don't Break the Chain. 

Artist!

Self definition is one of the most important lessons I believe i have learned so far, and there a lot about it i misunderstood early on. Recently I have been making a lot of new friends in the art community. Whenever I met someone new I would introduce myself as an "aspiring Artist" or "learning to draw" with no other identifier aside from my name. Time and time again I have been told to stop using these qualifiers for myself, "there's no such thing as a aspiring artist" is what they would say.  

Unlike becoming a Doctor, lawyer, or Rocket Scientist there are no qualifications to become an Artist. You do not need a certificate as a monument to your achievement or fancy tools and knowledge, you only need desire. If you are putting in the time and effort to create then what you create is art, thereby making you an Artist. The same thing goes for writing or producing any sort of content, with creative work what matters most is the passion and dedication you are willing to put into it. 

With this lesson recently along side the Don't break the chain method I learned I have been much more serious about drawing recently. It is important to put in the effort even when repetitive, but also important to understand yourself and who you are when creating. My artist friends always say it is easy to look at a finished piece and say "that's amazing', but it all started with a few lines and circles most likely. We must always keep in mind the due process and not let the success of others prevent us from pressing. 

Wrap-up

I will continue to update on the progress I make as an artist as well as the lessons my amazing new teachers and friends share with me. I would also like to start sharing amazing artist i meet who have not only great work but amazing energy and passion. Stephen Sitton is an artist and a streamer I met on Twitch who does beautiful work and helped me overcome much of my hesitation when I was stuck in a mindset of jealousy and self-pity surrounding art. I highly recommend checking out his artwork or his streams to get inspired or simply meet a wonderfully kind human being. 

The art i will be sharing today that i worked on is something I did to practice more with paper and Pencil. It was inspired by another blogger over at Our Anime Chats that has fun and engaging blogs surrounding overcoming the stereotypes of anime being for kids. I got a few books on how to draw anime I saw at a local store and thought would give it a try with inspiration from their posts. Next time we will be discussing the issue behind different mediums, their stereotypes, and what they do to the art community so stop by Our Anime Chats to get a grasp of the conversation we will be continuing.

Image Credit: Larry Steele

Tags: Anime appreciation, Learn to Draw