Within art, there are a few things that help the overall journey to get where you need to faster. These pillars hold up a foundation and without any of them, there will be a harder journey due to less support. What do we mean when we look at each pillar? Study: Finding an aspect of art to study and focusing hard on that. By either finding information online, trying to draw, creating study guides, or of course, giving yourself more than a month to actually get better at it. Daily Effort: Trying to find a way to keep art within your daily life whether that is doodling, talking about art, sketches, consuming resources, or just actually continuing a piece. To lock in what you know you have to keep doing it so your work will only be good if you continue to draw at least often enough but ideally daily even if it is for five minutes. Feedback: Get help from other people. Ask for specific critiques on things you have been working on. Ask for help on how to study something or start a piece of work. Asking is key and this comes from humility and also letting go of the idea that you are bothering others. Work smarter, not harder, and use resources including getting help often. It's important to have focused feedback over just anything goes for help. What you are studying on should be what you get critiques on. And don't forget, some opinions shouldn't be listened to if they are not something you want to do or they just are plain wrong. Keep boundaries and lines, someone tells you they don't like your art style or you haven't improved much just discount what they are saying. Treat yourself better as well when you give feedback, don't be overly negative. If you wouldn't let someone speak to a loved one like that then don't speak it to yourself. Mindset: Be your own biggest supporter. You will get a lot of negative comments and some of them are just insults. The main thing we need to realize is that you will not please everyone. No matter how hard you work to be liked or for your work to be respected you just won't have that. So we must have pride and faith in our own creations and abilities because we can't count on other people to fill in that desire or support for us. We should also have accountability and self-criticism to keep ourselves in check for all in which we do. The thing about mindset is the healthiest one you can have is one where you give yourself a fair chance and good reasoning when you do things. We shouldn't expect ourselves to make amazing jumps of improvement every year or expect to get to pro within the first four years of drawing. Most people take over six years to get to that level. This also means you have to be realistic about other pillars. Are you actually getting feedback often? Are you putting in daily efforts to try to draw or paint? Are you actually studying or are you copying or half-assing a fundie? When we don't give ourselves a chance to do something to our fullest, we are starving ourselves of the opportunity to better our craft and knowledge. Studying Approach by ScienceTypically when you go about studying anything you won't get it down right away and you should be working at something longer than a week. The goal is at least one month spent on improving on one aspect of your work over focusing on many. There will be loads wrong with your work if you are still learning which is a normal process in art. The problem comes is people tend to stagnate if they don't do focus studies of max two things during periods. You aren't going to get better at hands by drawing them for a week with studies then never again. You get better by focusing on drawing hands for a while. Routine only becomes practice if you sit down and continue to do something. Reward, you are improving from continuing your routine. Cue, this is where you decide to focus on studying something. According to BJ Fogg's research, these cues obviously need to be realistic. Like you won't be able to become a professional artist within 2 years or become a master at a fundie only studying it for a month or so. The goal should be realistic in a way where you can improve something that benefits you in the long run. There are many different approaches, even the 1% rule which is from Atomic Habits where if you improve an aspect of a fundie by 1% each day you study it then you will be better over time because that stuff begins to do 1%+1%, etc. There's another example in terms of smoking: cue, you begin to smoke because it's social and people you know also smoke too. routine, you continue to go out and smoke with friends. Reward, you made better bonds with friends, and also the gesture of smoking helps you feel calmer. So smoking is a good example for studying. as often reward is not always amazing and can be bad. You can give yourself the wrong rewards. With studying, if you do something quickly and reinforce a habit poorly you are rewarding yourself for doing something wrong. How? When you study you are aiming to improve that area of your work. If you are failing to actually do something that will reward you further by making other areas of art easier then it wasn't a very good reward to only know how to draw something in very specifics over learning how to do it in more expansive ways. And of course, if you are studying something badly, then the reward is a new bad habit. When you do studies it's important to get criticism on your studies, visit different material, and continue to give yourself enough time to study something. The cue is from criticism and feedback Routine is doing something longer than a week the reward is improving things in different areas of your work so a year from now you can look back and see the growth In terms of actually studying in routine: You shouldn't study for hours a day, that is pointless and many studies show that you only get about tops 2-3 hours of learning then rest is useless. A golden rule is one hour per day or every other day. So what 50-50 ratio rule is exactly the mentality that is healthy for you. You should study in chunks meaning don't binge your studies. Take breaks so your brain can rest. Take notes by hand meaning don't type your fundies notes as people tend to remember better by writing with their own pen. Multitasking is defined as doing too many studies or things at once. So if you are studying hands, feet, design, perspective, and painting plants. That stuff becomes ineffective as your brain needs time to remember something and how to do it well. This is why job training is not really useful in terms of teaching everything you need to know for working at that place. It's because there's too much crammed into a small window of time. This is also why some people tend to not remember stuff they did in school as too much is crammed into a small window of time. Effective studying also means effective learning so if you are studying something give yourself time to learn it and do it well. And of course, apply it to your personal work that is not study related. These things are not often talked about as many people believe in the method of grinding, it's important to also keep 50% of your art for fun that is not study based. Studying often doesn't mean grinding at it every day.
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Let's start with a basic concept of what it means to study art. The first thing you should know about studying is the goal is to learn something by heart and be able to apply it. So how do you do this with art? Well, art is a broad subject that is way too detailed to have a study that covers every single fundamental in a way that you can easily learn quickly. In general, art is hard to learn because studying it becomes a concept that is very confusing for the average person. It's not like typing in specific problems in math on google and watching YouTube videos to learn. It's more of critical thinking about how to approach a specific part of art. What is not a study? 1.) Guessing how to do something with no knowledge backing or resources 2.) copying images with no further exploration or information given 3.)Trying to do things by your imagination or "head" Building BlocksYou need to ask yourself the following questions to really begin to critically think about how to study: 1.) What am I setting out to study and what is the end goal for that? ex. What fundie are you studying, what in that fundie are you wanting to focus on, what area of that specific are you wanting to improve? If you can't answer this then it's critique time or reflecting at your work compared to someone's who is better. 2.) Is this realistic study I feel I can do ? ex. Is this something that might be too hard like you just started out and are trying to copy wlop's work. 3.)What does the study need to contain in order complete 1 and 2 in the list properly? ex. A study that really focuses on what you are trying to do and why along with it being within reason. 4.) What resources, knowledge, and materials do I need to do this? ex. Do you need specific photograph? A program? What do you need to get this done? Putting this into ActionAnswering the questions above: 1.) I am setting out to study how to paint eyes, my end goal is to improve my painting skills in conveying form and lighting of eyes in more lively way. 2.) This is realistic other than I might not have proper knowledge on pupils or eyes at all angles. 3.) This study needs to have basic notes, eyes are various different angles, and tasks that focus on painting eyes. 4.)I will need a reference sheet of eyes, notes on pupils, and have canvas big enough to fit this study within it. Applying Answers to RealityThe artist is making notes about the interaction with angles and body in this case it is the face/head. Their notes and information: In an average realistic adult face, the eyes are in the middle of the face. Usually, the pupils are sitting on the midway line. Eyes are a good tool to measure the proportions of the face. In the front view, the eyes are one eye apart from each other and one eye apart from the edge. Due to bangs or sideburns the distance might appear smaller. Don’t worry too much about symmetry. Keep flipping the drawing horizontally until both ways look right. Human faces are not perfectly symmetrical. From the side view, the positioning inside the eye socket makes the eye seem tilted. Stylised proportions are derived from realistic ones so the pointers can still be applied and deformed depending on the style. Even when the eyes are bigger, a structure that can be imagined in a 3D space should be established. This is the basis to make the eyes look 3-dimensional and imagine them from various angles. Continuation of notes: The form of the eye changes when the pupil moves. Don’t be afraid to break up the eye shape to make it dynamic. The pupil moves on a sphere, not on a straight plane. Continuation of notes: Especially when drawing eyes from a ¾ view it is important to imagine the spherical space they move on. Keep the thickness of the eyelids in mind. Stylised approaches might leave out some anatomical details, but the shape should still act like the realistic eye in order to achieve a 3-dimensional result. Notes: When the head is turned away in semi profile you might only see the tip of the eyebrow and eyelash. Turning it more reveals there is no space between eye and eye bridge. This indicates a strong change of direction to where the head is facing before it turns into a full profile. More: Imagining an eye mask can help to unify the features around the eyes so that they don’t just float on the face. The eye mask is also easier to imagine in different angles. Making the features work together helps to enhance the readability of the intended emotion. Eyebrows are a very powerful tool to show emotions. Sometimes it can help to exaggerate the eyebrows even if it might stray away from a realistic approach. Bringing eyebrows down to the eyes makes a strong expression. The effect grows when the expression is preceded or succeeded by a contradictory movement to show the full range of squash and stretch. Take into consideration what you really need. Simple eyes might work better for animation or a style that is more based on movement. Illustration and close-ups might require a more detailed approach. Personally, I try to avoid spending too much time on eyes so that I don’t forget the rest of the body. However, in an emotional drawing, giving special attention to the eyes might be a good idea. ![]() Notes: It’s helpful to imagine the eyes as a closed shape even if you decide to leave gaps at the corners of the eyes. This makes it easier to indicate volume and draw the eyes at different angles. End of their notes: The cornea is a transparent lens covering the iris and pupil. It has an effect on the shape of the eye. Be careful with the position of the pupil from different angles. Big pupils indicate looking at something far away or the eyes adjusting to a dark situation, among other things. Small pupils occur during bright light or looking at something from up close. Keep in mindYou don't need detailed notes like the example given but at the bare minimum, your guides and notes should look like the images where you have visual examples and notes of things to remind yourself. It is always important to try to approach studying like you are trying to teach other people something you just learned. You have to think about what is the important info and little notes you would need to get a topic accurately noted and taught. And of course~Look around and see how professionals or other artists do their studies and notes. This can also help you slowly understand what you need from something when you are studying. Keep in mind, make personal notes about what you need to work on or what you are doing wrong compared to what is correct.
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All studies are meant to help direct specific studies that address a fundie or issue.
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