Nyt's Philosophy on Art: What Needs Saying

Follow the link and read the article please:

money.cnn.com/magazines/fortun…






And even though it's talking specifically about business, athletics, music and chess, IT HOLDS TRUE FOR ART.

You can't just sit and sketch the same thing every day and expect to get better. Staying within your comfort zone in art not only WON'T help you get better, but it will also restrict you and make it harder to break out into what you're not used to.


Challenge: Pick something that you don't like drawing or feel you don't draw well. Could be hands, feet, animals, buildings, backgrounds, noses, ears, objects, props, weapons, whatever! Pick one and DRAW IT EVERY DAY with the goal in mind to IMPROVE and DO IT BETTER EVERY TIME you sit down to draw it.

IT WORKS.
It really does.

Does anyone here remember when noses were the bane of my existence? I do. Want to know how I got over it? It wasn't magic or talent, I can tell you that. I have sketchbook pages FULL of noses upon noses. Want to know what else I hated doing? Backgrounds. I used to think backgrounds were so boring and pointless, but knew I needed to do them if I wanted to improve in art. So what did I do? I took a class specifically ON drawing environments and currently this is my third time taking the class and I couldn't love drawing environments more and improving in this skill.

So really... if you want to improve in something, DO IT. The problem doesn't go away if you ignore it. It just festers and decays until the neighbors call the cops because of the smell.

And don't just sit down and fudge something out because you feel like you're cheating if you use a reference. THAT'S WHAT A REFERENCE IS FOR!! REFERENCE!!

So! There you go. I challenge you! If you've read this then you're challenged, in whatever you aim to do better and excel in, I DARE YOU TO DO BETTER!




~Yoko
((made into a news post by request))