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Practice, practice.
2020-12-13 18:46Within the past couple of weeks I've finally started moving forward on getting back in the habit of working on two things I've enjoyed doing: knitting and drawing. I'm a relative beginner at both, but I'm enjoying getting into practice again.
For the drawing, I'm purposely avoiding anything too ambitious. I've had sessions where I would sit down and work undisturbed, with intense concentration, and produce a fairly satisfactory result. But the problem is that the mental effort involved creates a high barrier to entry for my next session. That much concentration really can be exhausting, and I'll remember how grueling it was the next time I go to pick up my pencil and paper and I'll be daunted.
So instead what I'm doing is just simple, easy sketches, limiting myself to maybe 5 or 10 minutes, using subject matter that's easy to draw and that I enjoy working with. Right now it's classic botanical illustrations. By design, they are both beautiful and informative, and it's a great way to work on just getting the hand-eye coordination down so that I can produce something that (hopefully) bears some resemblance to the overall shape of the picture in the book.
Knitting by nature is sublimely relaxing and I'm having no trouble motivating myself to pick up the needles and yarn and knock out a few rows, several times a day. Again, the key thing is consistency, and not being thwarted by perfectionism. Dropped a stitch? Add it back in the next row and keep going. It's all good.
The meta-process here is just learning how I learn, and strategizing around that. Learning what works for me and what doesn't, and then applying that knowledge.
For the drawing, I'm purposely avoiding anything too ambitious. I've had sessions where I would sit down and work undisturbed, with intense concentration, and produce a fairly satisfactory result. But the problem is that the mental effort involved creates a high barrier to entry for my next session. That much concentration really can be exhausting, and I'll remember how grueling it was the next time I go to pick up my pencil and paper and I'll be daunted.
So instead what I'm doing is just simple, easy sketches, limiting myself to maybe 5 or 10 minutes, using subject matter that's easy to draw and that I enjoy working with. Right now it's classic botanical illustrations. By design, they are both beautiful and informative, and it's a great way to work on just getting the hand-eye coordination down so that I can produce something that (hopefully) bears some resemblance to the overall shape of the picture in the book.
Knitting by nature is sublimely relaxing and I'm having no trouble motivating myself to pick up the needles and yarn and knock out a few rows, several times a day. Again, the key thing is consistency, and not being thwarted by perfectionism. Dropped a stitch? Add it back in the next row and keep going. It's all good.
The meta-process here is just learning how I learn, and strategizing around that. Learning what works for me and what doesn't, and then applying that knowledge.
