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Practice vs Homework

6:03 PM, Monday December 5th 2022

How much is the homework the practice, and how much should we practice before submitting a "final draft".

Let me back up. In Lesson 1 I think, we were told not to grind out lines or planes. This totally made sense at the time. One or two pages of planes, or rotated boxes, was probably sufficient. Especially given the 250 box monstrosity around the corner. Likewise I felt it was pretty clear that drawing 250 boxes is the practice. Practicing boxes to draw 250 more seems crazy.

But starting at Lesson 2 I'm not sure. My contour lines are garbage. I know they are. I don't have enough control of my ellipses to get the orientation the way I want, or to get them to match the lines of my form. This didn't get fixed in the one page of 6 forms I did.

So back to my question. Should I practice contours and textures a bit before submitting a "final draft" of my homework? Or is the intent still just to do what is assigned and not get caught in perfectionism? Not that I'm shooting for perfect. Just enough control that I'm getting critiqued on things that are meaningful mistakes.

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4 users agree
3:17 AM, Thursday December 8th 2022

I definitely struggle with this as well. I suggest to not get too caught up on being perfect, submit what you have and see how it goes from there. Get feedback and move on. Some of the lessons are introductions and you will have the opportunity to reinforce these skills along the way. Its a journey, I also did the assignments along with the Scyla videos and it help me with understanding the time frame to complete the projects. I definitley submitted homework for feedback not feeling the best about it but was given very good direction on how to move forward. I'm thinking the point is to make sure you understood the skill introduced in the lesson and move forward, we are all a bit of a ways off from being perfect. Give it your best effort, submit and move on. Don't over think it.

3 users agree
7:20 PM, Tuesday December 6th 2022
edited at 7:23 PM, Dec 6th 2022

Very new in answering questions, but I'll try to answer anyway.

The idea is to still not focus on perfectionism, just understanding what the exercise is meant to teach you. It could be an actual concept (like contour lines), or something introduced to your subconscious (like observation). Even though your work may not be good, there is a difference between work that looks like the person understood the point of the exercise, and work that looks like the person didn't.

Focusing on just perfection would give those critiquing your work a very different picture of what the best of your ability is. Not to mention that perfection can take your focus away from the actual purpose of the exercise.

As for your work that you're unsure about, it's probably best to do warm-ups that make you work on your shortcomings (such as Funnels for the ellipses). If you still think you need more practice, I don't think it would hurt to practice certain parts of an exercise for a bit before beginning the actual homework (like individual S-curves for the Organic Arrows exercise). Don't get too invested in grinding it out, just warm-up enough to get into the flow of things, if even just barely.

edited at 7:23 PM, Dec 6th 2022
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