#161 - Experiencing Brain Versus Remembering Brain
How we feel after having drawn is important.
YouTube Video - Practice Drawing Rotating Curved Box Model — Web version.
read something interesting in a book recently: research had shown that from an experience, we remember the most powerful moments and the end. The research had been done in the context of using painkillers and experiencing pain. If you had experienced a lot of pain during a period but were free of pain in the end, you remembered mostly that end. I read long ago about an airline company that took the effort to make sure the final moments were pleasurable because they had discovered that they were rated higher if they did that.
If you have a newborn, it is an exhausting experience initially, but you forget that later as you have wonderful times with your child. It is good you forget because otherwise, no one would ever contemplate taking a second child!
The ‘experiencing’ brain versus the ‘remembering’ brain. While we do something, we ‘experience’ it, but our brain only remembers highlights and the end afterward.
This matters for drawing. Drawing can be fun; it can be slightly less fun occasionally when you need to do things you don’t like. I wouldn’t say I like drawing perspective lines, for example. It is okay if not every second is joyful. Do make sure you enjoy it most of the time, though! Otherwise, why do we do it? But if you end up with a result that pleases you, you remember that, and you will be more excited to draw the next day.
It’s why I advise you to initially do only one memory drawing in my workbook. Your brain gets exhausted. You should consider stopping drawing when a drawing you made came out right, so you feel good about the experience and more motivated the next day. Also, when drawing in pen, stop as soon as you start making mistakes due to fatigue. You can’t correct the mistakes easily. Better to take a break and then continue, mentally rested. It’s about mental fatigue, and the ability to detect it within yourself is a useful skill to develop, so that you can stop on time. I have it, too, and it is an unsatisfying experience to end a drawing session on a low. The trick is to stop on time before your mental exhaustion starts ruining drawings. It gets easier. You warm up quicker over time and can go on drawing for longer, but the ability to sense when you should stop is important. Even Kim Jung Gi did that. At the end of his hours-long streams where he drew realistic stuff, he’d start goofing off and draw cartoon style.
So, if you just drew something beautiful or finished a nice-looking sketchbook page, consider stopping there! Consider adding another drawing session later, but celebrate that success and enjoy it! Let that be the thing your ‘remembering’ brain remembers.
Yours sincerely,
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