Learning tips! How do you empower your brain to make art?
polycounter lvl 17
I'd love to hear personal tips and tricks you use to make yourself learn better. Less tutorial stuff, more lifestyle ideas. Ideally these are the habits that have helped you improve the most consistently. Here are some of mine:
1- Play to your strengths! Building confidence with a subject is very, very important to being able to study it well, and getting that first 'foothold' in figuring an idea out can be incredibly important. So start strong, and do the easiest part first. Need to draw a likeness? Do a sketch in that one pose/perspective you ALWAYS overuse first, or a sculpt based on smoothing/moving around ANOTHER great sculpt of yours, and THEN throw that away and start trying to do the hard stuff.
2- Never stop! Always keep your mind enaged! I find if i let myself 'cool off' art and I don't exercise my brain for a few days or weeks, I have to do a lot to shake off the dust and get back into it. So always I always think! I read books, I analyze shapes all around me, I draw all over anything around me(and my hands!) with marker, just to keep my brain thinking about art, even when i'm not productively drawing.
3- Stay healthy! When I'm running, lifting, or training mma, and i'm sleeping well, and I'm eating well, I function WAY better as an artist. This is something that hasn't been present in my life at all for the last few months and I'm REALLY feeling the effects. Where it's at all possible, having a surplus of strength in your life makes it a lot easier to devote time to hard work and studying. And as a bonus, confidence is a big help! I see so many posts around here about anxiety and stress issues -- every step towards becoming a superman is another step toward never having to feel shitty about yourself. So go to the gym, and eat better!
Would love for you guys to chime in with 4, 5, 6... And so on. And any comments or disagreements with my strategies are welcome!
1- Play to your strengths! Building confidence with a subject is very, very important to being able to study it well, and getting that first 'foothold' in figuring an idea out can be incredibly important. So start strong, and do the easiest part first. Need to draw a likeness? Do a sketch in that one pose/perspective you ALWAYS overuse first, or a sculpt based on smoothing/moving around ANOTHER great sculpt of yours, and THEN throw that away and start trying to do the hard stuff.
2- Never stop! Always keep your mind enaged! I find if i let myself 'cool off' art and I don't exercise my brain for a few days or weeks, I have to do a lot to shake off the dust and get back into it. So always I always think! I read books, I analyze shapes all around me, I draw all over anything around me(and my hands!) with marker, just to keep my brain thinking about art, even when i'm not productively drawing.
3- Stay healthy! When I'm running, lifting, or training mma, and i'm sleeping well, and I'm eating well, I function WAY better as an artist. This is something that hasn't been present in my life at all for the last few months and I'm REALLY feeling the effects. Where it's at all possible, having a surplus of strength in your life makes it a lot easier to devote time to hard work and studying. And as a bonus, confidence is a big help! I see so many posts around here about anxiety and stress issues -- every step towards becoming a superman is another step toward never having to feel shitty about yourself. So go to the gym, and eat better!
Would love for you guys to chime in with 4, 5, 6... And so on. And any comments or disagreements with my strategies are welcome!
Replies
I'll add a #4.
4. Have fun. Improving isn't always going to be fun, it requires a lot of mental grunt work and there are always going to be struggles. Sometimes it's downright depressing. But it's important not to get so caught up in the technical aspects or constant "study" that you find yourself dreading the experience. It's easy to stress out over wanting to improve, but a lot of times you can make major strides by finding a project that's just plain fun. I remembered some time ago that I actually did a lot of work with a small amount of effort in school years ago doodling on the back of homework assignments. It was more fun than the other stuff going on, and remembering to just let loose every now and then to do what comes most naturally has really helped me get into the flow of things much more consistently. This is somewhat tied to playing to your strengths.
5. Have a goal with your creativity. Just doing a 3D model (or whatever you're doing) for the sake of it isnt nearly as fun as doing a 3D model for a mod or for a game that you know a lot of people will enjoy..
I'm never in a better mood than just after a gym session. Normally makes me feel super motivated to work aswell. Now for example i haven't trained in nearly 2 weeks, i feel like shit and cant be bothered doing anything let alone art.
Due to pressures of deadlines and brutal fact that no submission = no pay, you're forced to grind it out whether you like it or not. And by doing it on a regular basis (daily if Starcraft or heavy holiday eating doesn't make you lazy) you'll be surprised how better you're becoming at what you do and you discover techniques on your own to make the process better next time you get to do the same project.
Be open to experimentation and don't think that your final piece will be amazing.
Expect to fail. Failure - love it.
Took an art course last year and the main problem was that even before putting paint to paper, I was thinking about how it would look. How can you know what your paint will look like on paper, without putting that paint down in the first place? Start painting!
1) Don't play to your strengths! i'm not saying don't do what your good at. if your good at doing alien heads and that's all you can do your a clown. you need to push yourself to do what your NOT good at to improve. the more you push yourself to do things your NOT good at then you will find strategies to attack your subject that work for you. the only way to learn is to go outside your comfort zone.
2) Always Stop! burnout... if you have not had it then you will. and then you will find a balance. pushing yourself to hard unless your really having fun is futile. you will generally fuck stuff up to because your really not interested in it. so if you need a break take a break. even a day or two. clear your head, listen to some tunes etc. but alway come back to it fresh and ready to kick ass.
3) Stay healthy! i agree with this
4)find the force that drives you and use it. no, not the lame Lucas Arts bull shit force. the force inside you that pushes you to push yourself. this is hard to know but the closer you get to it the more you can recall it at will and use it. this may take years and lots of hardship to approach. but when you succeed now and then you can take notes and piece it together like a giant puzzle of your mind.
5) keep your creativity in a safe place. commercial art is just one small outlet for creativity. don't let it own you and your creativity. flip that the other way around. you are in control and the industry is just one way you can profit from your creativity and skill. no mater the good and bad of an industry your true worth is your creativity and having faith in your own vision. never let any industry or anyone beat that out of you EVER...
6) draw, paint, sculpt, real stuff... the most important training is to draw paint and sculpt. both in the computer and in the real world. that is the foundation from which all the representational art is built. the better you get at drawing painting and sculpting your work in any medium will directly improve along with it. I have seen enough people train in these areas and improve there professional work to say this applies to everyone.
And don't forget sex, lots and lots of sex, its music and movie stars stay motivated and creative!
Create a habit in you work space.
People are creatures of habit, I know Jon Jones talked about this a bit, at his home office, he does NOTHING else in their besides work. If you slack off in the same environment you do work, you'll want to slack off more. Of course not all of us can have 2 computers, or a place to play, and a place to work, So you can create mini rituals or habits to make sure you get and stay in the working mood.
I personally have my head phones on, music playing, lights on, glass of water at my desk, tablet out, when I have all that going on, I feel like I'm in the zone, ready to work. I other wise never use my headphones, put my tablet away, turn off the lights, goof off on the web or play games.
Can't think of anything on topic to add that hasn't already been said.
Also
http://www.active.com/nutrition/Articles/The_facts_about_caffeine_and_athletic_performance.htm
Caffeine's a stimulant. It gives you hyperactivity and alertness, not energy per-say. Energy drinks are a bit of a misnomer. I drink lots.
Two listen, what you brought up helps me articulate another one that has aided me a ton:
Do not covet what you make. Love your art, but don't get too attached to each piece! You're developing a SKILLSET, never be afraid to erase or destroy your work. Anything you can draw will be redrawn better a thousand times. Deadlines always supersede the need for corrections, but if you CAN afford to make fixes: Tweaking and retweaking little bits of a piece because you're attached to the overall work is toxic -- just repaint the whole area if something's messed up!
I've heard Caffeine (coffee) doesn't give you more energy, it just causes you to burn through the energy you do have quicker, which makes sense, hence why you "crash" afterwards.
nah, your thinking of sugar and sugar drinks. like soda, energy drinks etc. you have to separate caffeine and sugar. i have almost no sugar in my diet. sugar is the quick fix that gives you some energy like a candy bar then you crash an hour later. i gave that up a long time ago. i drink BLACK COFFEE! :poly122: with a fat slice of teutonic techno, uk breaks&bleeps and some more obscure tidbits and an occasional piece of black metal and doom.
lol exactly.
This goes the same in person, so...
14 Surround yourself with other artists. Once again, art is inherently a lonely, solitary path, but seeing other people, whether they're further along the road or just starting out, is a tremendous aid to understanding what you do and don't need to focus on.
Learn about the world around you - I'm always listening to audiobooks or watching documentaries about history, physics, biology, psychology, zoology etc.
Travel - leaving your comfort zone and seeing and experiencing new things first hand is a very effective scenario for new neural imprinting/connections/stimulation in your brain. And it's inspiring and fun.