I wanna share with you a motivational TIP
I learned from my friend Roy Pallas, from the French blog: Blog-le-dessin.com. (blog-the-drawing)
I knew his blog before I met him in person.
I am happy to say that his blog is full of generosity and kindness – like how he is in real life.
Let me translate his motivational TIP for you. :)
“Don’t focus on the end result.”
“A common mistake as a beginner is to focus on the end result instead of enjoying drawing by itself.
As a beginner, when you don’t get the result expected,
you may think you are “bad” at drawing.
You get nervous and your level of motivation goes very low!
That’s the worst thing to do. However, if you take pleasure in drawing by itself – that’s much better!
I know how it is to get proud of your end drawing.
But don’t be too dependent on the end result.
Or you may get frustrated and afraid of making a new try – and maybe stop drawing forever.
But instead, if you “draw enjoying the drawing journey”,
you will realize so much more drawings! You will feel good!
And because iteration is the source of growing talent you will naturally make progress.”
– Roy Pallas, my friend I met thanks to Olivier!
Making progress is a lot about technique,
but you have to push aside your “mental blocking”
so you will build a ZEN and Experimented spirit by enjoying every minute you spend sketching. :)
Hope it helps!
If yes, say hello in the comments!
Cheers,
Chou-Tac
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I have a question, its not really related to this article but i wasn’t sure where else to ask it…I was wondering, when you studied design in school, around how many hours a day did you spend drawing your own things? (things that were not school given assignments) Do you think that staying up late to draw extra is worth it in order to improve? (I am asking because I want to improve my drawing, but my schoolwork already causes me to stay up late, because i go to a design/art school)
Hello Elisabeth,
The number of hours is not that easy to count, as it was not something regular everyday depending of the project and homeworks. Basically, I tried to draw most of the week though. It’s good to alternate long and small sessions in my opinion.
We didn’t have much homeworks on learning the fundamentals. Just a few here and there. So I learned by practicing and experimenting while doing school projects or personal one.
About my personal project, they was often related to subject I like in product design. For example studying how to draw sneakers. My goal was to learn footwear so well that I could add them in my portfolio and apply for footwear designer position. I self taught myself, so I was pretty tough. I had no guidance on this subject, BUT I was super motivated!
I could spend long hours at sketching, discovering Illustrator and photoshop. Basically the school gave us a bit as a kickstart, and we had to figure out the rest. I knew there was no room for complaining but keep going. A designer always find a solution :P.
Every Thursday afternoon, we had a 4 hour session of drawing, going somewhere in Paris – sit and draw. This is where I learned the most about the fundamentals of drawing and received personal feedbacks on my sketches – on the spot. (Not like giving homework and wait for a mark the week after.) That course excited me so much that when I went back home taking the subway, I carry on sketching during the transportation time! I kept this habit to draw not only at home or school but anywhere outside as well – drawing for leisure too.
Counting the number of hours is not what I did. I think I never though about this.
If you want to draw more and longer. Don’t manage your agenda. But manage your mood and excitement. So you will naturally draw more and improve faster. You won’t draw for sake of drawing and accomplishing a “boring” homework, but having pleasure. Define what is your goal. Don’t hesitate to define an appealing one! That same homework will become much more intense and meaningful. You won’t just “accomplish a homework”, but get closer to your goal. (Which was for myself building my portfolio).
It’s not easy to change habits. But it’s become easy when you give yourself an appealing goal so you give meaning to your action – so you will naturaly practice more – even if you are busy. Why? Because in your heart, it will become your priority. :) If your heart tell you to stay up late. Then go!
Hope it helps :)