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Tips for stippling 3

HOW TO ENJOY DRAWING WHEN YOU DON'T FEEL LIKE


ACCUMULATE SMALL SUCCESSFUL EXPERIENCES

Haven't you thought that you are not good at drawing and lost motivation?

When I was a student and wasn't very good at drawing, I used to think that I can't draw well and there was a phase that I had hard time working on assignments.

In my home country, Japan, you have to go to a prep school before entering an art college because they have very competitive entrance exams. They have intense classes where students had to complete one big drawing every day as practice for the exam. Instructors rank every students' work from top to bottom then give you critiques in front of all. Sometimes, those were hard to take especially when your rank wasn't good. For a long time, I was always close to the bottom. I wasn't great at taking their critiques, and often skipped classes and went to see music shows to escape from the reality.

(Ironically, the music that I was into when I was younger still gives me artistic inspiration. I believe every experience counts. )

That experience definitely made me stronger and gave me objectivity as an artist. But at the same time, it often triggered and led to the self-denial that I've had since I was a little kid. That was personally the hardest part about going to an art college to me and I had no idea to handle that mental issue at that time.


Not only drawing or making any kind of art, there are times when things go well and things don't go well. If you deny yourself and remain depressed when things don't go well, we often have the habit of putting things off in general.

But this happens in everybody's lives. I still often have it and I have struggled with it but I feel like I can handle it a bit better as I'm getting older, so I want to dive into the topic deeper.


I remember most of the moments when I started to feel more confident especially in my art. That feeling gives me energy to go though harder challenges and that builds up more and more confident. It's a great feeling and gives you good adrenaline every time you achieve something new.

But that moments don't last forever. It wouldn't go away completely but it goes down and up within your situations or environment. The cycle can be days, weeks, months, or years.

When your body experiences a great amount of stress from your environment, there is a release of adrenaline. This release helps you focus so you can take on the situation. Adrenaline is a stress hormone. An adrenaline rush can feel like anxiousness, nervousness, or pure excitement as your body and mind are preparing for an event. ... The release of adrenaline helps increase your mental concentration. It doesn’t take the pain away, rather it distracts you from the sensation of it. An adrenaline rush can heighten your abilities, making you feel invincible. This process is meant to help you overcome the situation that is causing your extreme stress. - WebMD

No wonder why people use drugs (including alcohol) for this. This feeling is great and sometimes protects you from thinking too much which might leads you to lose your confidence. The feeling of losing confidence is not fun to have. You want to avoid to feel it. In this society, some people feel pressure to have some sort of success. Unless they get the success they expected, they will feel like "failure" even though they actually don't fail anything.

But you can't get success unless you experience some fails. I'm talking about from small things like drawings to big things like your life. Sometimes you might get success without hustling so much but then you will hit a wall eventually. It might be small and it might be big.

What I want to say is that you may "fail" a lot but that doesn't mean you are worthless and it's all about how to process the feeling.

I often feel tired of keep "failing". These "fails" often include something I just couldn't do better than the last time. But why I'm feeling bad about it? I know that's not a big deal at all, but why I can't stop criticizing myself?...


I sometimes think about why so many people are using drugs and why they use them, especially after I moved to the US. Some people just want to have fun, but some people feel like they need it. The triggers for using drugs vary, but personally, I have seen many people who abuse drugs because they want to numb the "failure" feelings they have. If you get a habit of using something to control your feeling or emotions, you will numb the emotions you don't want to see and feel comfortable with that.

To have self-criticism is sometimes needed, but is really hard to maintain a good balance. When it's balanced you see your weakness logically and can improve yourself higher. But it hurts you mentally when it eats you up like a devil.

Capitalism wouldn't help. When you work in a company, they always think and analyze to sell more. It means "fail" if you didn't do better or sold less than the last time.

No matter how small or big, everybody experiences some sort of "failure" in their lives. When that happens to us, the only thing we can do is try our best and take it easy.

I know most of you simply enjoy your daily lives and don't need advice in general, but I want to talk about what can prevent stressing out too much and small things you can do through the school tasks so that you can utilize the creative time positively since you are taking the art classes anyway :)



HOW YOU GET IT WHEN YOU HAVE HARD TIME FOCUSING

Not only for drawing, the important thing is to have self-affirmation (forgive yourself that you couldn't do well as you expected) and think about the counterplan to improve your weakness.

I think self-affirmation is the most important thing to build your confidence, and confidence leads to your growth. This can be done by accumulating small successful experiences and it doesn't matter how small they are. It matters if you complete and don't give up in the middle. I think the school tasks are great for that.

Even though you are not satisfied with something you made, it's important to finish and think "Well, I'll just keep trying because I'm still learning". Don't take it as a "failure".

When you feel "I think I can draw more", that's the time you can add more tasks to yourself without stressing out.


You need to focus when you need to tackle your tasks. Here are some tips that you can try for your art assignments.

  • TRY NOT TOO HARD IF YOU DON'T FEEL LIKE YOU CAN ACHIEVE It's okay even if your artwork is small and simple. Set your goal you can complete and try your best. You don't have to feel pressure to make something great, but you will be satisfied when you complete one artwork. This feeling is the key. When you set goals that don't match your current mood or level, you just lose your energy and gradually lose focus. Your motivation is getting lower and lower because you can't achieve your goals, and it makes you hate working on the assignments then eventually you hate drawing in the worst case.

  • SET THE TIME TO DRAW AND TAKE A SHORT SHORT BREAK It's better you set up a certain time to work if you have a focus issue. I keep going for hours and hours non-stop when I have good focus but I don't always have it. I set up short working times (like 20 mins) and 1-3 min breaks when I don't have good focus but have to finish something. Or I just break down small parts of the drawings and get them done one by one. This method is good to complete any types of the task when you have to work on something.

  • PUT AWAY YOUR PHONE FOR A CERTAIN TIME To me personally, phones are most distracting. Once I open Instagram or a stupid game that I play sometimes it can take up to 20 mins so easily just by scrolling the screen. It's a must you put away your phone while you try to focus. This is why I always suggest to print out all your references if you can so that you don't need to use your phone.

  • THOROUGHLY PREPARE YOUR WORK ENVIRONMENT I'm a freelance illustrator / graphic designer so I work from home. When I start working in this style I discarded the gut theory of "I'll manage to focus in any place" and started by arranging the work environment because you can easily get distracted when you are at home. I have my staple setup: - Tidy the work room - Set the height of the desk and the height of the chair - Dress for work (To me, putting some makeup on and changing) - Have tea or coffee (with something to hydrate) - Playing my focus music (without ads) - It is also important not to be disturbed by family or roommates (close the door or communicate with them not to disturb for certain hours)

Also, you will like drawing more and improve your focus level by finishing in a shorter time intentionally rather than just drawing for a long time.

Why?

The reason is success experience and energy: the feeling you can get from it.


Even though I sometimes feel like I can draw forever, the more I draw, the more tired I get physically. This can effect my work efficiency and the focus level on the next day.


Therefore, the lack of focus due to fatigue will not occur by shortening the drawing time intentionally and using the remaining time to recover the energy for the other things or the next day.

Also, "shortening the time" means that you must finish the drawing within the set time. This pressure helps you to focus more and you can get it done faster.

With this mindset, a small successful experience is made every day, and you will be able to keep your motivation.


Stippling generally needs a lot of time and focus, and you may simply need so much time to complete your design. However, you may be able to cut corners to improve efficiency by trying some of the stuff that I shared here when you don't enjoy drawing. Take it easy and don't let your self-criticism eat you up.


Happy Drawing! :)

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