Balance between improvement and production.

[arrogantchild]

HI.

Title gets at the gist of it, and this has been bothering me for quite some time. How do you strike a balance between learning/practice and actual production? And, in addition to that, how productive should you really expect to be?

Essentially, I define "practice" as copying and studying the things that I see. The drawings that I make while I am practicing, although I feel like they help me a lot, are typically visually unappealing. They're art, but not in the, "Hey, check that out! I wanna look at THAT," kind of sense.

For myself, I consider a proper piece of artwork something that I actually take the time to beautify and make coherent.

But the problem that I run into is that whether I'm practicing, or going for something more precise, I always feel like I'm being unproductive. When I'm practicing, I think, "Jesus Christ, you're just drawing a page full of hands and other people's photographs. You'll never be able to show it to any one, so go create an actual piece." And when I go for an actual piece, I think to myself, "Jesus Christ, you have no knowledge of human anatomy. Go do some practice instead." And it just doesn't stop.

Because school is happening right now, it's rather difficult for me to find big chunks of time in which to work. Even if I start a big project, the sessions that I am able to work on it are so spread out that it becomes far too easy to see the flaws inside the work. So I don't want to complete them because I think that they're weird looking, and I find this scenario playing out with all of my art as of late. Is this normal or should I just suck it up and finish them any way?

Thanks...

[DavePalumbo]

in short: don't worry so much, just keep going

whatever you're doing, it's practice and productive. When you do studies of hands, it's practice which benefits you down the road and therefore productive in a broad view. When you do assignments for school or jobs or personal/portfolio work, it's productive in achieving a short term goal and it's also practice in your craft and further defining where you do and do not want to go with your art.

If you're sick of doing so many anatomical studies or color charts or whatever, do some drawings and paintings of they stuff you're interested in and want to pursue. If you're unhappy in the drawings and paintings you're doing because of technical flaws (anatomy, perspective, etc.), do some concentrated study in those areas. Or do drawings and paintings which focus on that issue. See a pattern here? ;)

[shaggy]

no rules against studying while producing

if you feel weird getting reference and doing a piece from that, try getting the idea solidified first...then snap a photo of yourself doing the pose, or whatever body part you're having trouble with. Or find a mirror so you can get the right angle on said body part.

then you've created the image and acquired reference to aid you, and you haven't just copied a picture.

hope that helps

[tensai]

I don't think one excludes the other (http://www.conceptart.org/forums/showthread.php?t=60746). But just switch it up, focus on what you are doing at the moment, and know that you can do something else the next day.

[Farvus]

Yeah. I always got that problem actually. I'd love to do both during the day but studying is so brain consuming that there's not enough thought left for ideas. At the same time developing ideas is so brain consuming that I can't just switch into looking at muscle structure or how values work.

Right now I just try to develop exercises that are quick and simple - one/two pages of anatomy a day, bunch of thumbnails. I also try to analyze stuff more as I paint from imagination and focus more on observing things around me when I'm going somewhere - color of sky, muscles of someone's neck and so on.

[Puck]

Try to double up, so practice things that go directly into your finished pieces. Draw a page full of hands from a certain angle if you're about to tackle a particularly difficult hand from that angle - this way you'll not feel like you're wasting time, and your finished work will look better. I spent a lot of time just 'practicing' and I didn't actually finish anything - whereas now I focus on completing finished works to the best of my abilities, and to do that I gotta get me some practice that focuses on the things I'm finishing - it's easier to get motivation that way too.

Art takes time, sooooo much time, in this fast-paced world of today it's easy to get impatient. Take as much time as you can in the preparation stage - make studies of every figure, every hand, every face, draw it all out, do multiple compositions, and value and colour studies and resolve any difficult parts first, all of these will be 'practice' but they will all make that finished piece better.

You can't make this:

629725

Without a bit of this:

629726

Well I can't anyway. (Do love me some boog - except for that funky foot in the bottom right.)

PS: art is full of 'doubt' - ignore it all and just keep going, because the only 'wrong' thing to do is to do nothing because you're so worried about whether you're doing the right thing. Doubt will f*ck you up.

[Hyskoa]

Puck, do you have those drawings in a larger size?

[Puck]

Yes, they're all on:

http://www.xs4all.nl/~frqnc23/framesen.html

Those particular sketches are in the 'drawings' section under 1873.

I love that website, it has heaps of sketches and studies for several of his works. I find it really interesting to see the progression - imagine if he had gone with his first compositional sketch (top left of the 'sketches' in my post), it would have been so bland compared to the diagonal energy of the final composition.

[Bushido]

Thanks so so so much Puck i did't know that page!!!!!!

Cheers!