Eating Aeroplanes

[legomaestro]

You may have heard of this dude in passing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michel_Lotito

I think I've found the thing that'll make me keep at regimens all the time, and drawing and music in general. It's sort of vague and personal idea but basically, if you can eat an aeroplane, then given enough time and with smart planning and compartmentalisation you can tackle even huge random ridiculous tasks like say writing a million words or drawing something 1,000 times.

And I've always felt weird about the aimlessness of doing something repeatedly or tackling huge tasks, like what's the point? My answer is like: Why not? Monsieur Lotito did get some fame and that's something tangible and nice to have, but I think even that just doing it because I want to is more than enough.

Sort of a big breakthrough and I need to frame it better over time but yeah that's my basic rambling.

[Suuper-san]

Ahh yeah I had a picture of him in my Guinness book of records haha

Yeah that's pretty one of the cornerstones of my masterplan, an insanely high regular output results in a massive amount of work being possible.

I think basically that's how artists get proper good. regardless of what method they use, it's always the doing it daily and regularly over a long period of time that ended up with them becoming pro.

I once had a theory that if you drew nothing but cats, but did it regularly and often, that you would be just as good as drawing people portraits at the end of it as someone who practised drawing portraits for the same amount of time.

And for very large projects, chipping away at it is pretty much the only thing you can do to get it done. But knowing the best way to chip away at it will definitely improve your progess in that project.
So efficiency is not to be ignored either. It's a quantity vs. quality issue as well. If you can have both then you are far better off than having just one, but one is better than none. Pretty sure I'm on the quantity side not the quality ahaha

[NO1SY]

Personal motivation is a tricky thing...

I'm not a huge fan of Jordan Peterson or Jocko Willink... but I would be remiss to say that they didn't provide a modicum of decent life advice when they were relevant. They were the big two pushing the "Make your bed" meme a few years ago, and despite everything else I disagree with them on, this piece of advice actually helps I think.

I.e.: If you stuggle with motivation and diligence, then start your day with a task that is small, low effort and achievable. Force yourself to get up and do it every day. Succeeding in one small task can provide the encouragement and motivation to tackle larger tasks afterwards. So the idea is that one small success will cascade into larger ones throughout the day.

If you are unsure that you can trigger a cascade, maybe some varient on this idea can help some people. Perhaps instead of hoping one small success will snowball into larger ones by the end of the day, try tackling a larger challenge right off the bat of a small success. Then succeed or not at that greater challenge, after a time, go and succeed at a different small task, and then either return to tackle that larger task again or try a different larger challenge, and then another small task to succed in, and then the larger task again and so on. Constantly give yourself those boosts in motivation from small successes.

Some people worry that by succeeding in small tasks and not larger ones, you may be wasting your time and not achieve much. However, I think at the very least and even if you fail all of the larger tasks you try to tackle, you are achieving a small level of productivity as opposed to none if you didn't even try to begin with. Moreover, after a while you will have established a new baseline level of productivity for yourself that includes those small tasks as habit, without you having to expend any motivation to even do them, meaning that you should be able to increase productivity over time if you assign yourself new "small" tasks to succeed in - which would actually be larger tasks than the ones you initially began with.

TLDR: Basically just choose something small and definitely achievable to do every day and do it. Starting something is the hard part, but once you jump that hurdle, you should be able to climb higher.

[Suuper-san]

ahaha that's exactly what I just wrote on my own art thread XD
it's kinda the combination of a good attitude (from being successful) and the momentum of doing things that can really help to deal with bigger things.

That reminds me, my dad has a phrase "I'll have a look at it (but I'm just looking today, not working on it)". Literally almost 100% of the time he ends up working on whatever.
Literally today I said it, "Let's go and look at what needs sorting in the garage, and then we'll do it tomorrow". 2 minutes in and I started moving stuff. Spent a whole hour tidying and sorting.

So by separating the thinking from the actions you can reduce the mental strain required for a job even though the end result is the same.
My WIP iterations use a similar concept of breaking down the structure of my illustrations into manageable bite-size segments.

[KeanFox]

Just want to talk about the 1,000 times thing. Besides teaching discipline, there are huge downsides that don't get brought up. For one it's one of those things that get romanticized.

If you want to practice drawing a perfect circle. The first 10 circles are just bad. 200 later, circles getting better but they are a bit oval. 400 later a bit better but still oval. After 1000 still stuck at 200, drawing ovals.

One can get stuck in his own bubble. Hitting his head against a wall. Getting gratification from hitting numbers. When it should be from getting results.
   
I think at some point I found comfort in just hitting numbers. I'm not going to think about it, just hitting my number for today. I think wasted at least two years on that.

TLDR: 1,000 times thing can teach discipline, just don't get stuck repeating without getting results.
Don't eat Aeroplanes they are bad for your health.

[NO1SY]

I actually think that's a very valid point to bring up, if you would allow me re-word it slighty:

It's not helpful to practice something while instilling bad habits.

A personal example of this is how I learned to play drums... I started out being taught by someone who was not really a drum teacher, and so rather than learning to practice important rudiments and techniques, or even how to hold the drum sticks properly, I was taught 3 beats and 3 fills to play along to piano tracks (I was taught how to read drum sheet music also...). What this did was allow me to pick out simple time signatures and keep to a beat even without a click track, however past that I really struggled to scale up my drumming ability because of bad habits that I started with and never learned how to iron out. And now that they are ingrained I find it even more difficult to force myself to play with proper technique, or sit down and practice basics properly, because I find it uncomfortable or unfamiliar. How can I play along to a song I like with high tempo blast beats if the way I have always held my sticks prevents the rebound motion and barely uses my fingers? I should be twice the level of drummer that I am currently by now (13 years on...), but I hamstrung myself by never correcting issues along the way to be able to develop properly.

[Suuper-san]

@keanfox
You are definitely describing the issue with the phrase "practice makes perfect". If you are not doing the right sort of practice then you will indeed hit against walls all the time and not progress as much as you would like.
I have often heard the phrase reworded "Practice doesn't make perfect; Perfect practice makes perfect".
So you need to be aware if you are not using the right method.

@NO1SY
same again, that's a really good example of that sort of thing. the wrong sort of practice leads to wrong habits and issues down the line, and you run into trouble later on.

it's very hard to know what counts as good practice or methods, as many artists, in any field, disagree on what they think is the most important thing to focus on, or the proper method for doing something a certain way. There is a large amount of agreement, don't get me wrong, but there are always subtle differences if not outright major ones.
I personally hit this issue when trying to find tutorials early in in my art life, and basically I decided to ignore everyone and make my own decisions. Weigh up all the information that everyone gives me, but use my own experience and problem solving to decide the "right" way for me.

[Walt]

I once had a theory that if you drew nothing but cats, but did it regularly and often, that you would be just as good as drawing people portraits at the end of it as someone who practised drawing portraits for the same amount of time.

And the person who exclusively drew portraits regularly ends up drawing cats just as good as you draw them?

[Suuper-san]

well, it's only a theory, but yes, the reverse should be true as well.
Of course there is an amount of knowledge that is needed to draw something new, but the artistic skills that are used are almost the same, is the point I was trying to make. In other words, form, light/shadow, perspective etc. No matter what you are drawing these will come into play.