Yesterday, I went to bed late. I didn’t want to wake up the next day.
Today was the next day. And it sucked. Just like I had feared. I was tired. I was stressed. I was an hour late to a meeting that was at 8AM.
Today I wanted to find a new solution. I want to find a different way to look at things. And I think I found it.
Here are the key parts of my new mindset:
Think about how much money I want to make today from 0 to about $500. Think about what projects I want to work on that will be worth that much.
Think about how I want to increase the value of the company I am contracted to – so I can have a success story and be paid more.
Take care of myself. Make tea, go for a walk.
Go to a nice place to work, go through my to do list. Create my workpost for the day.
If work is demanded early without having time to prepare, compensate myself an hour. Then bring blankets and other comfy things to my chair to make myself comfy and allow myself to wake up slowly.
UNIT TWO: Dynamic Figure Drawing | Day 1 – Explore figure sketching techniques/simplification
I’ve been actively avoiding working on this challenge all day. I feel like it is because it is so damn overwhelming. It took so much for me to even just sit down and start working on this.
But now that I have sat down and am working on this, I want to create a mini lesson plan for today.
Since today is about exploring figure sketching techniques and simplification, I shall design a lesson plan to make it impossible not to get good at those things. As I’ve said before, lesson plans let me connect to the present moment, on one task at a time. This in turn helps me work through the feeling of being overwhelmed.
Mini syllabus for: explore figure sketching techniques/simplification
Total time: 90 minutes (est 30 min per unit, 10 min per part)
Circle head, half for nose line, half of that for mouth line
line for neck
line for spine
line for hips perpendicular to spine
line for shoulders perpendicular to spine
Head shapes
circle with lopped side for skull
cut cube for face
Sketchy woodwork for finding pose
Keep scratching until a form emerges
Erase or lighten then refine
Advanced shapes
triangle tricep
triangle forearm
teardrop thighs
diamond calf
box pecs
triangle delts
pen tip torso
Mini unit 2: Experiment
Part 1: School of thought 1
I practiced basic armature and it looked pretty bad. I think I started to improve when I moved the hips a little higher.
Part 2: School of thought 2
Things started to improve a little here. I really like the method of simple shapes for the head. I felt like I understood the geometry much better.
Part 3: School of thought 3
This is when I used the sketchy woodwork carving out a pose and when I refined it, I used the advanced shaped coupled with everything else I learned. I really really like this method. Gives me dynamic poses without losing the anatomy.
I didn’t get to Unit 3 because I feel complete and it is 2AM and I want to go to bed.
Very happy with today’s progress. I feel like I killed it at the figure drawings and I feel much more confident drawing figures.
I feel like I’m on an adventure, even though I am only 40 minutes away from my apartment in Austin. I am in the city of Leander, northwest of Austin and I’m feeling a bit tired but excited about the solar eclipse today.
I’m in the library and I feel at home but also lonely. I think there is something about being in close proximity to books that remind me of my childhood and about daydreaming and reading about people’s lives and wanting to find close friends and conquer the world.
I feel lonely, and I wish it was easier to connect with others.
The library reminds me of elementary school when everything was pretty simple. If you wanted to be friends with people, you just became friends with them.
I’m feeling really tired because I didn’t go to bed very early last night. I also think the sleeping appliance and my sleep mask are not things I’m used to sleeping with so I don’t sleep as well with them.
I’m focusing on recentering on my house, and that anything is possible in my house.
Today there is a solar eclipse, and I’m excited for that. Maybe I will read a book really quick, then get some work done and drive over to watch the eclipse from this really cool park nearby.
Yesterday I was vlogging a guy \asked me if I was a YouTuber, and he asked me all these questions like what my channel was about and how many subscribers I had.
I felt REALLY self-conscious because I AM a YouTuber, but not a famous or successful one and I feel like I’m disappointing people when I tell them that I have three hundred subs. I realized a few things when I felt the feelings of shame:
People LOVE the idea of youtube, you don’t need to be big for people to be excited about it. Sure some people will judge you but I think most people like the idea that you are trying to succeed and are probably curious enough to look me up and subscribe. In fact, isn’t that what I want? People who are legitimately interested in my journey subscribing to me?
I’m always REALLY self-conscious when people stare at me when I’m vlogging and I always try to solve the problem by either NOT vlogging or trying to ignore the embarrassment. I realized that there is a third better option. Any time I’m feeling embarrassed, I should just feel the feelings until the right path becomes clear to me. Usually, I feel so uncomfortable I will do ANYTHING to avoid the feeling, but I should just embrace it as I should do in any uncomfortable situation.
Today I was supposed to work on the upper body, but I found a really cool pose and decided to work on that instead. Unfortunately, it took a very long time to sketch out and I was also very exhausted from drawing until 4AM yesterday. I also had a lot of travel and work coming up so I was a bit stressed and overwhelmed.
I feel sometimes that I put too much on my plate for a challenge. I definitely felt overwhelmed coloring a drawing with this much detail.
