There's been a lot of talk about self directed study time at the minute... This is one area I have already thought of a lot and have made all sorts of notes in my work diary. There is all kinds of factors that effect personal development, the main ones being the amount of effort you put in, and your discipline to stick at it... Or "passion". The next important ones are being smart and organising yourself so you're not only doing the right work but your doing the right things within it.
I have a couple of friends I'm gonna use in these examples... hope they never read this. My first friend I'm gonna mention is a close friend of mine I have known since infant school - Lee. Lee is a nice guy, we both applied for the foundation art course at the same time... Unfortunately Lee was unsuccessful at getting onto the course, I thought quite a bit why. The obvious reason is his portfolio - he has lots of passion but is solely focused on evil things, namely dragons and robots. Not only does he talk about them non-stop and the latest ones he's seen but he also draws them - almost exclusively. Looking at his portfolio of twenty pages or so there was only one picture of anything that was not a dragon (this happened to be a predator). To be honest the dragons aren't great either - lack of full anatomy, always drawing the same composition and never researching simple things like value, shadow and light, or anatomy. Even now he brings me pictures which I would call "doodles". See, he has a lot of passion and reflects it through images, it's just that he has never explored (against everyone's advice) different subjects. His passion is more consumer based then creative - Every time I go around he is very excited about the latest toy (literally toy) or game he's bought... He has to be special editions of everything and has what I would call unhealthy addiction - Neglecting the whole spectrum of emotions and thoughts you can express through art. Lee is keeping the faith and ambition though and has been taking life drawing lessons.
See, Lee has a lot of passion but no discipline - He's taken these life drawing lessons (missed a few) and has never even tried drawing himself. Everything for him is waiting for the perfect time so he can commence. "I need space in my room", "I need my PC fixed", "I'm too tired", "work won't give me Wednesdays off"... He procrastinates and finds excuses to put things off. He asked me about when he should get his portfolio done & applying for this year. When I said Get it done for new-year - Why wait and put it off and struggle? My heart goes out to him, is frustrating to see him waiting for that day when he can finally do what he wants - I've told it's today and every day, but I think his passion needs to blossom so he can get out of his rutt.
The other friend I'm going to mention is Phil (used to be a drinking buddy when I was 16-20, he had to quit alcohol due to being a total piss-head and is happily married now and living on Narborough road). Phil tends to be obsessive about his interest, for the gap I didn't see him a few years for he loved martial arts & Kung fu films. Then it was singing and playing guitar in a band. Now its comics. He is certainly passionate - He actually bores me by talking about comic artists (a bit like Lee and dragons - they have both ruined two things I really like). The difference between Lee and Phil is that Phil is focused on emulating... comic artists instead of musicians this time. Phil puts in loads of hours drawing, reading, research and the like. Phil's problem however is he is too focused on a narrow field. He has spent so long reading on how to make comics that his drawing process sucks - I have never seen an original piece from him, or even coloured, and only a few even inked. See through all of Phil's reading and artist studies he has never stepped back and developed the fundamentals. He is all about page layouts and more about the process of making comics that he has as far as I know only drew one life study (under my advisement). Also when you give him feedback (which he wants) he has a whole line of excuses why they don't matter - He knows more about comics and knows what he wants so fuck anything else.
The reason I mention Phil is that he is my example of having passion to draw, but lack of understanding and is not passionately learning what he should be to progress quickly. Every picture he has to use book reference and takes very very long, and honestly i haven't seen many "striking" images. On top of all of that he is very strict with his range of work and is "selfishly" just doing exactly what he likes. This leaves him with weak images that look like poor emulations of something that looks familiar.
Like everyone else I learn from my friends (and hopefully them from me), and while me annotation may be a bit cold and judgmental it is honest and I tell them. I am by no means perfect I can see that not only do you need passion, but you need discipline - Without it you are a person that talks more than does.
On the other hand I think I am some times too separated from my work - When someone says it's fantastic I don't really care so much, but when they have something insightful I'm very interested. It is nice when Lee said he thought I had developed over the foundation year but I didn't really see that... I kinda feels like it's work I had in me - it's just taking time to get it out. I think I should take a bit more value in my work sometimes and try to reflect, but screw it - Move on. The way I think about it is that (apart from with purely expressive work, but that has different goals) any work I do, I can immediately do a better piece after it, so why get hung up? Is like a shot out a gun - it's gone but my next shot is gonna be better... If I focus.
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