This is a rather “practical” blog post, just an update on what I’ve been doing. No mushy gushy fun stuff today, just practical nuts and bolts about improving drawing skillz. I’ve been doubling down on this Deliberate Practice thing, spending an hour drawing most nights, this is an update.

I don’t exactly know how Deliberate Practice works, and I’m not going to pretend that I do. I’m not going to write about it with authority when I’m not really an authority on the subject (despite the rules of Blogistan). Eventually, if I keep up my practice, I will have authority on this subject matter, at least with regard to the practice of Fine Art creation.

I’ve said before, and I still believe, drawing is the most important creative skill for an artist. Artistic skill begins with drawing skill, and is capped by drawing skill.

So I want more drawing skillz, please.

While before I just drew, with no plan other than to draw, now I am following a plan. I bought a drawing instruction book, Keys to Drawing to work through. The book has 50 or so exercises meant to develop certain skills. I have worked through the first 6 in the last week, all of which have focused on observation, and recreating what I see into lines and shapes.

So far, I can’t say whether I recommend the book or not, but having a list of exercises has been helpful. I don’t have to think about what to draw, I just have to do the work.

I’ve had some realizations about Deliberate Practice, I have some tips, observations, etc.

First, having a plan works. Well. The first guideline of Deliberate Practice is that it is specifically designed to improve performance. I bought the drawing book mentioned above to fill this requirement. The book is, after all, specifically designed to improve performance. It may not be the best course for me specifically, but it is, in general, designed to improve skill. If I had a drawing instructor, I might get a better program, but I’m pretty sure that any program is more important than no program.

Second, I have to set a timer. If I plan to draw for one hour, I have to set a timer for one hour and work until the timer goes off. Watching a clock doesn’t work, setting the timer does. The process of setting the timer commits me to what I am doing for the time I commit to doing it. Something about it just works. Timers may be the most valuable productivity tool on the planet.

Third, I’m getting worse. This one was unexpected. As I’ve been working through this book, I feel like I’ve been getting worse and worse at drawing. For example:

The tomatos on the left were drawn months ago, before I was following any course of practice. The pepper on the right was drawn last weekend, as a drawing exercise from Keys to Drawing

The drawing on the left was done a few months ago, before I implemented any structure to my drawing practice. The drawing on the right was done last weekend as part of my structured practice. I think the tomato on the left “looks better” than than the pepper on the right.

The tomato on the left, however, was drawn the way I usually draw, and have drawn for years. I just applied the skills I already had as best I could. When I drew the pepper on the right, I was looking at the pepper differently, because I was instructed to, and attempted to depict different things about the pepper, and in different ways. In other words, I was using different skills, and different ways to draw, that aren’t as well developed as my “usual” way of drawing.

The big realization for me is that by getting a little worse, I probably am actually getting better. The new skills that I learn,and work to implement into my skill set, aren’t as developed as other skills, so when I use them, it seems like I am worse.

Follow My Progress

I created a set in my flickr.com account, check out Sean’s Deliberate Practice Flickr Set, and follow along as I update it. I include a short description of each exercise with each of the drawings I upload.

Are you implementing Deliberate Practice into your routine? What are you doing? How are you doing it?

I’ve been thinking about deliberate practice in art a bit lately. I have time to revisit this, the spice mines aren’t taking as much of my time.

A little backstory, starting in late 2009. At the end of last year, I spent a while planning for 2010. I determined what I wanted to accomplish and how I was going to accomplish it. I had a plan in place, and it was good. “No plan survives first contact with the enemy“, however, and the new year saw me loaded up with work at DayJob. A lot of work (so much I only had a little time to send out a dispatch from the spice mines every now and then).

Things have shifted again, I’m still busy, but not so much that I’m working nights and weekends. My Utah trip was at a folcrum point. When I returned, work wasn’t requiring all my time like it had been for the first several months of the year.

I have time to dedicate to my art, but I don’t have a discipline of practice or schedule in place to make the most of it. Hence, time to revisit Deliberate Practice.

Deliberate Practice One Hour A Day

I’m going to mash 3 ideas together –

First, I want to revisit the idea of doing my most important activity for 1 hour every day. Drawing is the fundamental skill of art. If I am not improving as a draftsman, why should I bother?

Second, I want to create a clear program to improve my drawing ability. I just read Switch, by Chip and Dan Heath (of Made To Stick fame). The book is alright, but the topic is fascinating to me: how do people change? In the book, they focus on three ways to create change: our mind must know what to do, our emotions must be positive, and our environment must facilitate the change. 

Emotion? Check. I’m pretty motivated. Environment? Check. My apartment is filled with art supplies and places to draw. Clear plan in place? Che.. er, hmm. Maybe I’ll just, uh… draw something? Often, my hang up to drawing is, “what am I going to draw?” It is not a hard decision to make, but just having to make the decision makes the process harder. I am shopping for jam, and there are too many choices*.

What I need is a clear plan of study, so that when I sit down to draw for an hour every day, I don’t have to think about what to work on, I just continue with the plan. I just got one of those 33% off coupons for Borders, my plan is to buy a drawing instruction book on my way home from work today. I hope this will provide the type of structure that I am looking for, so I don’t have to deal with paralysis of analysis.

That said, if anyone has a suggestion for an intermediate to advanced drawing book, please don’t hold out on me. Leave a comment with a suggestion. 

Third, Deliberate Practice. As a refresher, here are the characteristics of deliberate practice:

1. It is designed specifically to improve performance
2. It can be repeated, a lot
3. Feedback is continuously available
4. It is mentally demanding
5. Typically, it is not that fun

I think this plan will hit all of these cylinders.

Motivation

I was talking to my dear friend Ivana last night, I told her about my usual routine of working a bit in the morning, going to the DayJob all day, then working again in the evening. She pointed out it is rather a lot to do.

I started thinking about my motivation, because the productivity I am shooting for goes against the common view of what is “balanced”.

I think that what motivates me is imagining myself in 10 years, looking back at what I did over those years. I want to show that I accomplished something, grew my abilities, and did something.

The only way to do that is to work. A lot.

Notes:

The example of too much jam is from an often cited study in which shoppers were first shown a display of 6 flavors of jam in a grocery store. The number of sales were recorded, then the display was modified to show 24 flavors of jam. They sold less jam when there were more options, the conclusion is the more choices we have, the more difficult it is to make any choice at all.

Click here to go back up.

Wednesday is a busy day for me – rush to work in the morning, work all day, spend the evening at a buddies house, pick up some groceries, and finally make it home around 9 pm.

Pencil Sketch from my sketch book

After getting laundry in the washer, I finally had time to myself around 9:15. Time to draw. I put on some music, got out my pencils, and started drawing the nearest thing to me, my other hand.

Let me back up half a sentence, because this bit gets to what I’m writing about today. I didn’t just put on some music, I put on Mahler, Das Lied Von Der Erde.

Gustav Mahler is a favorite composer, when I listen to his music, I feel like it was written about me. I first heard Mahler in a bookstore, at one of those “CD preview” machines, listening with headphones. Within the first two minutes of the 9th symphony, I was enthralled. If you want to know what what it is to feel both the pain and beauty of life (at the same time), listen to Mahler’s 9th.

As I drew, I thought about kindred artists. Every now and then, I will find art that I feel was made for me, or about me. The art captures something better than I can explain myself. I seem to find these few and far between, but when I first encountered Mahler, his music was this kind of art.

(Strangely, it is rare that visual arts enthrall me like this. Every now and then something will really stand out to me, but I usually don’t understand why. I can’t figure out why I can stare at Mark Rothko’s “color field” paintings all day, but I can. I’ve been casually reading Rothko’s book, The Artist’s Reality: Philosophies of Art, to figure this out.)

The poetry of E.E. Cummings strikes me in this way. His organization of words is the most similar to the way I feel about the world that I have read. This was another instance when I knew within minutes that I found something that resonated with me. I read Since Feeling Is First, and I knew that whatever that was true for him, that made him write those words, was also true for me.

I finished up my work in my sketch book for the night as Das Lied Von Der Erde finished, I put my clothes into the dryer, and ate the dinner that was heating in the oven.

My CD player switched to the next CD, Mahler’s 9th. I grabbed 100 Selected Poems, sat on my window sill by the fire escape, smoked a cigarette, and read.

* * * *

Is there an artist or artists whose work strikes you especially strongly? I’m curious. Leave a comment if you’d like, let’s talk about it.

* * * *

A note about recordings: I linked above to the Pierre Boulez recording of Das Lied Von Der Erde. It is a decent performance, and a modern recording. I bought it mainly because I like Pierre Boulez’s work on the rest of Mahler’s Symphonies. I highly recommend Das Lied von der Erde conducted by Bruno Walter, however. It is a much older recording, but the performance is outstanding. I have this recording on vinyl, I haven’t gotten the remastered CD yet, but reviews I have read seem to indicate the remaster is quite good. It sounds phenomenal on vinyl. If you want to hear the 9th, I like Mahler, Symphony 9, conducted by Pierre Boulez. I’ve also got Leonard Bernstein’s recording of the 9th, but it doesn’t seem to have the urgency that I like so much in Boulez’s recording.

I’m working on a new woodblock print based on my destination at the end of Elephant Canyon: Druid Arch.

I was rather struck by this arch. To get to it, I had to hike through a canyon, then finally up a rocky hill. I scrambled up and over rocks to climb a couple hundred feet up the end of the canyon, before reaching a rock plateau that looked back on the canyon.

Druid Arch, at the end of Elephant Canyon

When I turned my head to the left, I saw this tall arch, standing 100 feet up in the air above this plateau. I drew this arch then, and I am printing it now.

The colors and shapes of the desert strike me the most. The rocks are large, massive, un-moving, yet arches like Druid Arch look fragile, like the slightest push could topple the entire thing. The rock edges are smooth in places, weathered by who-knows how many years of water and wind, yet in other areas the edges are sharp and hard, where the water worked its way into the rock, eventually causing it to break apart quickly and fiercely.

The rocks themselves are rich reds, oranges and whites, cut by the dark shadows against the rock edge. Most of all, the sky in the desert is blue. It is vibrant, and when I looked at the arch with the sky behind it, the blue began to vibrate and pulse with brightness and luminosity.

It is a challenge to capture the entirety of this experience in a small printed image.

This arch stands up above a rock plateau at the end of a canyon I reached 6 miles into this desert canyon. It stands about 100 feet tall.

I sketched Druid Arch while I was out there, and I am developing this woodblock print from the sketch and from photos I took.

From the Grand to the Mundane

This weekend I found myself in the middle of process hell. I haven’t written much about process hell, but it is when my work consists of carving, mixing ink, rolling and printing blocks, making sure images register, cleaning up ink (and hands, and rollers), preparing paper, and other tedious bits of the printmaking process. All my work was printmaking grunt work over the weekend.

There was a bright spot, however. As I was working, I realized I was at an interesting point in the process that illustrates how a print is planned and how the image takes shape. I took a picture of the assortment of materials I was working with to show and describe to you. The numbered descriptions below the image describe each item in the picture below.

A woodblock print in process of being developed (click to enlarge)

1. Graphite and Color Pencil Sketch – Before I touch a woodblock, I sketch the image to solidify my plan. I started with pencil to get the overall shapes correct, then added color to figure out how many blocks I would need to do what I want. My plan is to use three blocks, one for the blue of the sky, and two for the arch. One block will print the light yellow areas in the sketch, another will print the dark areas shown in the sketch. The third color, the reddish brown color will be created by overlapping the two other colors.
2. First Carved Woodblock – When I am satisfied with my sketch, I transfer the image to the first block. To do this, I draw a heavy line around the edge of the image with a soft pencil, my 6B or 9B. I then press the sketch against the woodblock, and rub the back of the sketch, making the pencil lines transfer to the block. The blocks that define the arch will be bounded by the blue of the sky, so I carved the sky first.
3. Mylar Transfer Paper – After the first block is carved, I transfer the image to the other blocks. This requires a more precise process than when I transferred the sketch to the block (as described above). To achieve the required precision, I print the first block on a sheet of mylar. Mylar is a plastic, and the ink largely remains on the surface of the mylar (in other words, it adsorbs instead of absorbs the ink). I take a fresh block, align it with the mylar, and rub the mylar against the block. As long as I align the mylar with the block correctly, the result is a fairly precise transfer of ink from one block to another.
4. Woodblock with transfered image – The process I described above results in a block with the ink from the first block transferred to it. I brush the block with Talcum Powder (i.e. baby powder, makes the block smell nice too). The talc absorbs into the ink, removing the tackiness, leaving the surface of the ink dry. This keeps me from smearing the ink and making a mess as I work on the block. You can see I wrote “light” on this block, to help me keep track of which color this block will print. This block will be the lighter color of the two blocks I print to compose the arch.
5. Partially carved Woodblock – This block will print the darker of the two colors in the arch. I have carved away the area that will be printed blue, and I will carve away more from this block before I am done, to define the areas in the arch that will not receive the darker ink. When I finish this block, I will repeat the process of printing the image on the mylar, and transfer this image onto the second block (in number 4 above). The second block will then have the image from both of the other blocks transferred on to it, and I’ll be able to finish the carving process.

More Work To Come

The process is interesting, but tedious.

The most difficult part of the carving process is carving the second and third block, because these define the arch. The first block was fairly easy to carve, since it only depends on having the boundary of the arch with the sky defined. The success of the image will depend on how well the other two blocks work together to define the structure of the arch.

After the blocks are carved, the other challenge is picking and mixing the right colors to print. I spent the last week printing an edition of another woodblock print, only to realize, at the end, that I was unhappy with the color decisions I had made. I learned from the process, however, and I will be able to apply what I learned to this print of Druid Arch.

As of this writing, I have the second block carved and ready to print, I should be proofing this print later in the week, and start editioning the print this coming weekend.

I came across some vintage travel posters from early last century as I wandered through my RSS feed this morning (via lines and colors).

Zion National Park Vintage Poster
Click to go to National Geographic's site for a larger image

It turns out that one of the posters advertises Zion National Park, and another depicts Arches National Park (though it wasn’t a national park when this was made).

It is timely that these appeared today, I am working on a woodblock print from some of the stuff I drew in Arches National Park while I was there a couple weeks ago.

What I really find fascinating about these is the visual perspective they offer, particularly, how to depict these large landscapes with just a few colors. The Arches poster has 5 colors, though it is possible that the darkest brown is created by overlapping the medium brown on top of the green. That’s how I would do it, though I am not sure how silkscreen inks behave with transparency. Silkscreen is the printing medium I have the least (read: none) experience with.

I have carved 4 blocks for the image of Arches, and I am working to create a few extra colors by using overlapping blocks.

This is one of the bigger challenges I face with a multi-block print: how to use the blocks effectively and efficiently to present the most amount of visual information with the least amount of elements. Each color added is another block added, which means hours of painstaking carving.

Arches National Park Vintage Travel Poster
Click to go to National Geographic's website. The larger image is worth it.

When designing a print of something as large and nuanced as a gigantic rock arch rising from the desert in front of a vivid blue sky, I have to make decisions about what is important to depict. Not every detail can be shown, certain things need to be generalized, and certain details ignored, in order to create the overall picture.

Simplicity of design, and making just a few colors work to convey an image, and convey them beautifully, is one of the challenges of printmaking. This challenge is one of the reasons I enjoy printmaking so much. The process requires careful planning, then when the elements are printed together, an image slowly starts to take shape out of the jumble of colors.

These posters accomplish this requirements of using minimum elements for maximum effect masterfully. They are simple, they make use of just a few printing elements, and still convey the beauty of their subject. I hope to be able to do a fraction as well as these with my current series of blocks.

There are a number of posters on the National Geographic website. They are worth spending a minute looking at.

As for my take at printing the National Parks, I have the first two blocks printed on the first image, the prints are hanging to dry in front of my window of my apartment. I should have results to share this weekend, the 2nd and 3rd prints should roll out next week.

I renewed my membership to the SF Museum of Modern Art the other day. Well, actually about 5 months ago, but I’ve been sitting on this post a while.

They gave me a poster when I renewed my membership. I got the girl who helped me to admit that she gave me the poster because I am special (I told her to tell me that, after all), though I think they gave everyone who renewed that week a poster.

I didn’t look at the poster until I got home later that day.

It kinda freaks me out.

Country Dog Gentlemen by Roy De Forest. Satanic dogs on acid.

If somebody told me to draw satanic dogs, then asked me to draw them like they were all tripping, I don’t think I could depict that as well as this poster does.

That’s what I see, but maybe it’s just me.

It turns out this painting is by Roy De Forest, who was a professor at UC Davis from the 60’s to the 90’s. He passed away a few years ago, in 2007. He lived in Port Costa later in life, right up in the North Bay. He was a local Bay Area artist for the majority of his life, so kudos to SF MoMA for promoting the local guys.

It’s still a freaky poster though. I later saw it hanging by the entrance to the children’s education center in the museum. I wonder if this painting has inspired many nightmares?

I always return to painting self portraits.

There is certainly the practical reason. It is hard to find someone willing to sit in front of me for 6 hours at 10pm on Sunday night, but I always seem to be willing.

That’s not the complete story though.

I’ve never been much of an intellectual artist. When I make art as an intellectual exercise, or to express an intellectual concept, it falls flat. In my mind, intellectual art is better served by the craft of illustration, using line to exactingly express an idea, fact, or concept.

Art works for me when it comes from emotion. If you tie me down and force to tell you what art is, and I will tell you art is turning emotions into images.

I have a hard time expressing emotions. I don’t talk about how I feel, or write how I feel, it doesn’t work. I’ve been told I have walls to guard my emotions (in one of those delightful now-that-we-are-broken-up-i’ll-tell-you-what-i-really-think-of-you conversations).

Self Portrait II, Oil on canvas, 12x12

Painting how I feel works, however. Imagery can represent how I feel in ways I don’t know how to communicate otherwise. This is, I think, why I make art. If you want to understand me, understanding my art will get you well over half way there. The art that best translates my emotions into an image is usually my best art.

Self portraits connect me back to the basic reason that I make art. When I stare myself down for hours at a time, I can’t avoid how I feel. This becomes the fuel for my self-portrait paintings. The paintings themselves don’t always hold the charge of emotion, but the process does.

I whipped out this painting you see here on the left because I felt stuck. (Being stuck seems to be going around.) I wasn’t sure what I should be doing with my art, or where I want to take it. I had no idea what images to make.

I’ve had some ideas, but nothing that really gets to the heart of what I mean to do. One of my recent “good ideas” involved roly polies. The other involved my truck. Not exactly high impact. I had decent reasons for these ideas though. Kinda.

As I worked on this painting, I was able to wrap my head around my art, and what I should be doing with it. I rediscovered what is important to me, and I have an idea which direction to move in, even if I don’t know how exactly it will show up in my art.

I know I can revisit self portraits when I need a kick in the right direction, or to figure out what is going on inside. It works.

Velociworker is behind you

Sometimes work is a big monster, right behind me, ready to tear me to shreds. I was busy and productive yesterday, I worked until I couldn’t focus anymore. By the end of the day I would read a paragraph only to stop at the end and realize I didn’t actually comprehend a word I just read.

Focus will tear your mind to shreds.

I had half an hour this morning to draw, and this came out. What a nice quick pencil drawing, yes? I have no idea what exactly it means or why this came to mind, but it made sense somehow.

Who knows. Work today made me think of drawing something much more vulgare, maybe I’ll get to it tonight.

A lonely desk. Ink Drawing.

I had some time to doodle a bit in my sketch book when I got home from work last night.

Work’s been on my mind quite a bit lately. I am working under 3 deadlines for 3 different projects, I’m running at about 12 hour days. There isn’t room for much else in my mind other than work.

The Sea of Lonely

When I have deadlines like this, which isn’t often, my head goes to a certain space. Many things run on autopilot, and I just devote my brain energy to churning out the work. I know there is a lot to do, so it is a slow burn of mental energy.

Anyhow, these are last night’s doodles. When I have time, I draw for an hour or so after I get home from work. Work –> home –> draw –> sleep.

This sequence becomes an isolated process, and that was the inspiration for the drawing on the right. When I am in the office at 8pm, after everyone has left, I am in a sea of stuff, but none of it is relevant, except what is in front of me at the time. It’s a sea of loneliness, and I float through it as I work.

Focus is lonely.

Living Deadline

Night of the Living Deadline, Ink Drawing

As I mentioned, I am working under a few deadlines. Most of my mental energy goes towards meeting these deadlines, except for the few bits I keep in reserve for drawing and typing out these posts.

After a bit of time, I feel like my mind has been sapped, my awareness is down, and I am just lumbering through life, working to meet this deadline.

I started this drawing, not intending any zombie reference, just attempting to capture the worn out look of someone burning on both ends to meet the deadline. It ended up looking fairly zombie-like, and the “living deadline” title presented itself. I was feeling a bit like a zombie when I drew this, it was late and I was tired. I was home from my 4th 12-hour day in a row. The lines are crooked, it’s kind of jacked up. It was drawn by a zombie.

A deadline zombie.

The zombie outbreak is real, and it has been going on for decades. It is the turning of white collar workers into mindless zombies, hell-bent on one task, finishing the project to meet the deadline.

We are all zombies now.

I like this idea, I might flesh this one out.

Ha! Flesh. As in zombie flesh. Get it?

Never mind.

Indecision Time, 4x4 Woodblock Print

I filmed myself carving the 4th skater series Woodblock Print, and put together this little video.

The block took about 4 hours to carve, but using the magic of video editing software, I crammed all of this into 15 minutes. The video starts with a pencil drawing on the block, and shows the entire carving process, until it is finished and ready to be inked and printed. The video is in two parts, each part is about 8 minutes long.

I threw in all of the punk rock music that I listened to while carving these blocks, and that inspired the beginning of the skater series.

Want to see more of the prints from this series? Maybe even buy some? Check out the Skater Series Gallery.

This print is the last print in a series of 4 prints inspired by punk rock and skateboards. The prints are all 4″x4″, black and white, most done very quickly, in 5 or 6 hours, from start to completed edition.

Part 1:

Tired of my video? Wanna just look at the art? Check out the Skater Series Gallery.

Part 2

Now you’ve seen the video, check out the final print in the Skater Series Gallery!