[Mad Hatter]

 

7 minutes ago, Harriet said:

The birbs were good, that's true. But I feel like I wasn't advancing the skills I want to --design, imagination. I was just painting from reference.

That's not the point, the point is to learn to have fun first! If you always see painting as work or something to improve then it'll never be fun or a relaxing activity that you want to come back to over and over again. It will be a chore or at least a high-energy activity.

 

But if you want you can always take something enjoyable like the birb project, and tweak it a bit to practice design and imagination. Change the colors, dress it up in a hat, paint two birbs interacting. Find something that's still fun to do.

 

Besides, it's not tru that you were "just painting from reference" - you were applying your own ideas and style to the paintings. That's really cool.

 

20 minutes ago, Harriet said:

At the moment, assassin's creed valhalla. It was on sale so I grabbed it. It's so beautiful compared to the older games I'm used to.

Enjoy!

[Harriet]

41 minutes ago, Mad Hatter said:

 

That's not the point, the point is to learn to have fun first! If you always see painting as work or something to improve then it'll never be fun or a relaxing activity that you want to come back to over and over again. It will be a chore or at least a high-energy activity.

 

But if you want you can always take something enjoyable like the birb project, and tweak it a bit to practice design and imagination. Change the colors, dress it up in a hat, paint two birbs interacting. Find something that's still fun to do.

 

Besides, it's not tru that you were "just painting from reference" - you were applying your own ideas and style to the paintings. That's really cool.

 

Enjoy!

 

That's all true. If painting from reference without worrying about "improvement" is what I need right now, that's what I should do. I'm all about non-improvement at the moment.

[Mad Hatter]

32 minutes ago, Harriet said:

That's all true. If painting from reference without worrying about "improvement" is what I need right now, that's what I should do. I'm all about non-improvement at the moment.

Why do you think doing things for enjoyment won’t make you improve? 

[Harriet]

9 minutes ago, Mad Hatter said:

Why do you think doing things for enjoyment won’t make you improve? 

 

Oh I guess I'll improve at the thing I practice. But I won't improve at the thing I don't practice. I think this because of experience

[Mad Hatter]

3 minutes ago, Harriet said:

Oh I guess I'll improve at the thing I practice. But I won't improve at the thing I don't practice. I think this because of experience

I don’t think that’s necessarily true! You might not be improving as fast as you could, but I don’t think that means zero improvement. By studying references your eyes will adjust to seeing more details and nuance within those references. By copying over and over again you’ll get the shapes ingrained in your muscle memory, allowing you to draw them quicker and can focus on other aspects. Your intuition for poses and perspective will improve. You learn shorthands for the subjects allowing you to make more gestural drawings if you wished. If you say you learned nothing from the birb project I don’t believe you. ?

 

I mean yes you won’t learn that much about colour by drawing in black and white for example, but is that even relevant? Nobody says you have to learn everything and practice everything.

[Harriet]

47 minutes ago, Mad Hatter said:

I don’t think that’s necessarily true! You might not be improving as fast as you could, but I don’t think that means zero improvement. By studying references your eyes will adjust to seeing more details and nuance within those references. By copying over and over again you’ll get the shapes ingrained in your muscle memory, allowing you to draw them quicker and can focus on other aspects. Your intuition for poses and perspective will improve. You learn shorthands for the subjects allowing you to make more gestural drawings if you wished. If you say you learned nothing from the birb project I don’t believe you. ?

 

I mean yes you won’t learn that much about colour by drawing in black and white for example, but is that even relevant? Nobody says you have to learn everything and practice everything.

 

I suppose slow progress is progress. And I certainly don't need to improve or be good at everything right now. I just need to find a life I can, well, live with.