This year, I didn’t make New Year’s Resolutions. I made January resolutions instead, and one of them was to FIGURE DRAW every day. Since I got so much out of this experience, I thought I’d share some of the results and lessons I learned…
You don’t know how much you need to learn until you start making marks. It’s easy to draw from our strengths and ignore our weaknesses, creating the facade for ourselves and others that “I’m good at this, I know what I’m doing.” It is a difficult thing to do at first, but once you decide to face your weakness and improve it, that’s when you turn weakness into strength. But you will never know you have a weakness unless you FACE it.
Visual memory is underrated. You think you know how to draw a hand? Or an elbow? Or a knee? You probably don’t—you’re just assuming you know what it looks like and you say “Yeah, that’s good enough” to your drawings. But after you practice drawing something over and over again, there’s a memorization that occurs. And once you’ve got it memorized, the sky is the limit for what you can create.
The halfway point is the hardest part. Confidence is high, so you think you don’t need to practice anymore. And there’s a “haven’t I done this enough?” Mentality. Working through that phase is just a matter of continuing to show up, staying vigilant, and eventually your curiosity will reemerge. “I don’t know it all, and I’m excited to keep learning…”
Building stamina and endurance is part of the process. At the beginning of the month, I would check the clock constantly to see how much time was left. By the end of the month, I was settled into each hour as a meditative opportunity to lose myself in low-commital practice. I found that headphones were very helpful in getting “in the zone.”
I proved it to myself that I can commit to something like this and follow through. Even if some days weren’t perfect, I still showed up. And in the end, I actually have a lot of progress to show for the time invested. When I see progress like this in small things like daily practice, it helps me believe that I can take on other missions, and potentially succeed.
This experience reminded me, above all, about the joy of learning. It sounds cheesy, but this mentality is essential to an artistic practice. You can learn how to draw or paint or sculpt or sing or whatever else, but as soon as you stop learning, you stop growing. Our art should be an extension of ourselves, as we are beings of ongoing growth and evolution. Our curiosity is what spurs us onward, and I hope never to lose that.
There is a point when you must stop studying and start creating. I spent the whole month studying the figure, and it is time for me to move on and create again. I will continue to figure draw throughout the year, but will not do it as consistently as I have this month. Instead, I will integrate more creative drawing into my schedule, and hopefully use the skills honed this month to create some amazing original artworks.
I will say, setting aside an hour at the beginning of my work days (and days off) would not have been possible if I hadn’t been developing discipline in other areas. For a whole month I refrained from alcohol, improved my diet, developed an exercise routine, and woke up early (almost) every day. I knew that I needed a healthy baseline if I was to make any commitments, so this month was my reset month.
I already notice more confidence and efficiency in my drawing skills after this experience, and look forward to showing how those skills translate into my current graphic novels-in-progress! Thanks so much for reading, I hope you got something out of my January blog post ~:)