Art Process: Being Fit Versus Being In Good Condition
f you work out regularly, you are in good condition, but you’ll be less fit when you fall ill for days or weeks and can’t work out. But when you train again, you will be at your old fitness level quickly because your body is still in good condition if the break isn’t too long. So it is with art breaks. If you have to stop drawing for a short while for whatever reason, you can pick it up again later and return to the level of skill you had before in a few days.
Around fifteen years ago, I started writing words in uppercase to practice hand lettering for comics I was making at the time.
Recently, I tried writing lowercase letters again. The first attempts were clumsy, but in a day or two, I wrote lowercase like I used to. I was frankly surprised to see my handwriting style coming back. My muscle memory still remembered how to do it.
You can take breaks.
I used to worry about the “draw every day” mantra. You don’t have to. Taking a break for a few weeks and then a few days to get back into it is okay, especially when you need the break.
This Week
I am thinking about ways to create awareness for the tools on Practice Drawing This. I draw every day, or at least, almost; as per the above article, I do take breaks. And I use my own drawing tools to practice drawing. I keep finding minor improvements I can make, but they are becoming increasingly minor.
In general, the Morning Sketches APP and 3D models work! They are a joy to practice with, if I may say so myself.
The issue is that the tools on the website could be beneficial to a broader audience, and I am trying to determine how to raise awareness for these tools.
Instagram doesn’t work anymore, at least for me, but I might also post there when I have something to share, since the platform is free. One day it may start working again.
YouTube works well for others, so I can try to crack that.
Pinterest works tremendously well for me (with two million views per month!), but I already have a format that works there.
My latest idea is to “show, don’t tell” on YouTube. I can just show the randomizable 3D models, while also showing you how I draw them. It requires only a “slight” change to my routine: I need to film myself drawing.
It turns out that it’s not really a slight change to my routine, as I need to place the sketchbook in an unnatural spot for me to draw so the page can be filmed. As a consequence, the lines don’t come out as accurately as I want. However, that may be a matter of practice.
An Easter egg for you: if you are in a 3D view of a randomizable 3D model and press the ‘d’ key, it will start rotating slowly and change the model every four seconds. This is the “demo view,” which you also see in the videos. By pressing the ‘e’ key, the model only rotates around the z-axis, as seen in this week’s model; for some models, that random rotation works better. Try it here.
This week, the randomized box demonstration shown at the top of this article went live on YouTube on Monday. It had an accompanying Short video on Thursday. I like how I can use the same material to create both horizontal and vertical videos. Just a different render.
Over the next three weeks, I will release two similar videos each week, with some days in between, so I can better analyze the statistics.
I don’t want to make regular videos with voice because that takes time away from me drawing, creating entertainment, only to have you waste time consuming it, instead of drawing. Let’s not waste each other’s time; instead, let’s draw a lot!
I am legendarily bad at marketing and would love to hear from you if you have suggestions on how I should approach this. How does BlueSky work? Is Reddit worth it? Or should I not waste more time, stick to Pinterest and get YouTube working, and then draw more?
Additions To The Platform
I use the flashcards system myself and have found that, after some hard practice, I want to wind down and draw from my imagination, having a fun drawing session. I wanted to add that as an off-ramp in the system.
At the spot where you finish a warm-up and where you finish doing something imaginative with what you drew, you can now choose to continue doing the flashcards (as was possible before), but now also opt to stop doing the flashcards for now and draw, from imagination, or some other reference.
There are now three phases. First, you warm up, then you practice using the flashcards, and finally, you wind down with some easy, fun drawing, perhaps applying what you’ve just learned.
I heard Steven Zapata say in his YouTube videos that you should start with the fun, creative stuff first, and only after that do the hard fundamentals practice. I get where he’s coming from: do the most important imaginative work when you’re still fresh, rested, and energetic. You can try that as well, but for me, it works best to start with warm-ups, get some practice under my belt, and only then do some fun, creative drawing.
Improvement To The Perspective Drawing Game
Someone requested to be able to specify the field of view in the Perspective Drawing Game. You can now do so in the two modes that show a rotated box. Underneath the perspective puzzle you can now find a choice list where you can select the field of view.
An Animator’s Stopwatch!
Someone who goes by the name -ApeShape Animate reached out to me with the question of whether I wanted to host an Animator’s Stopwatch on Practice Drawing This. They had worked on it together with BearMug , a good friend animator.
The idea behind animators using stopwatches is that they can perform an action and then time themselves to see how many animation frames it would take for the movement to look natural.
You can use a regular stopwatch for that. Still, with one designed for the task, you can mark multiple keyframes and specify the framerate, allowing the system to calculate frame numbers automatically. In their version, you can also set the system up to loop, allowing you to perform the motion multiple times and time your motion and perhaps try different versions of the same motion.
I made some changes to the code and need to make more improvements. But it’s really cool!
Thank you, -ApeShape Animate and BearMug for sharing this!
The Animator’s Stopwatch can be found here.
That’s it for this week. Happy drawing!
Yours sincerely,
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