Tam_Paints

2023-01-28 18:55

Hey there! As someone who has been through it, don't worry too much if you want to do more lessons. I think the 50% rule is more of a guide. I think it's fine to push forward if you want to learn more. Just make sure you try applying it to what you want to draw every once in a while.

You said you want to draw people and that you finished the box assignment. This might be a good time to draw someone holding a box, sitting on a box, inside a box, etc. That will help apply some of what you learned in the lesson.

One of the most important parts of learning art is the mental struggle. It's tough when what you draw doesn't look right because you don't have the fundamentals down yet. If you are feeling burnt out on drawing on your own and just want to get back to learning, don't hold yourself back. The most important thing is that you find the best way to have fun with it.

When I did drawabox, I found it worked best for me to do a few sessions of the lessons, and then when I felt burnt out on that I did a series of my own work. Flipping back and forth over longer periods of time felt best for me, and maybe it's worth trying for you as well!

Just remember that this is just a guide for how to learn the fundamentals. It will teach you a lot, but if you are self teaching yourself then go at whatever pace is best for you!

Uncomfortable

2023-01-28 19:05

I cannot stress this enough - the time spent on the 50% rule, on the "play" drawing, is not intended to help you improve the quality of your drawing. Your wording, especially in terms of "Or am I supposed to just tough it out with no improvement here at all?" suggests that while you've read the lesson, watched the videos, etc. you're still struggling with the idea that you're spending time on something that isn't directly going to help you produce better work.

The value of the 50% rule isn't something you're going to see immediately, but it will help you develop a healthier, more resilient, and more long-lasting relationship with drawing itself. It is not going to be a pleasant process, and it is not fun. It is torturous and frustrating. For any one of many different reasons, students at this stage need to produce work that looks good, because they've associated their own personal value with what they produce. Between the influence of the educational systems that teach us to fear failure, and the constant urge of social media to be popular or be worthless, many of us develop an incredibly unhealthy relationship with what we produce - regardless of the field.

This leaves the majority of people without the capacity to put up with drawing a bunch of trash for weeks, months, and years, in order to get to the "level" they fantasize about. In fact, it turns into a moving goalpost moving away from us as quickly as we can scrabble forwards. We just notice more flaws, we become more dissatisfied, and we assume that everyone else around us sees the same mistakes. That everyone is going to laugh at us (something you mentioned yourself, that people would laugh at your sketch), when in truth... No one really cares. But the world tells us that if we're not getting any attention, then we are not worthy of attention, and thus we are worthy of nothing. It's a toxic environment in which we've all been raised, and the 50% rule serves to undo some of that damage, so that at the very least, we can see the value in all that we do. Because if we are incapable of seeing it, then why should anyone else?

The 50% rule is conceptually very straightforward. You draw. What you draw does not change the fact that you drew, so as long as you've drawn, you've completed the task. But students bring their own additional barriers to that. They want to draw well, they want to see for themselves that the time they've invested has had an impact, that they've grown, that they've improved, and if they don't see that, then the fact that they drew at all doesn't matter. It's not enough for them to just draw, to simply follow what they're being told.

That's how it begins, but over time, through sheer brute exposure, it gets easier. It becomes a job, something you do regardless of whether you're motivated, regardless of what you want in the long run. It becomes something to get out of the way. And some ways beyond that, it becomes... fun. Those self-doubts and fears become quieter, the concerns about what others will think or do fade away, and it becomes about what you're doing, the marks you're making, and the simple pleasures of playing and experimenting.

But it isn't that from the get-go. So right now, it may feel redundant, it may not feel worthwhile. But as babies babble nonsense in order to get a grasp of their first language, to get a hang of conversing and expressing themselves with sounds they're barely able to get their mouths around, we too have to create a lot of nonsense to truly grasp the breadth of expression and communication for which this visual language we're learning now allows.

pzone

2023-01-28 20:40

Just a suggestion unrelated to the rule

I would start by practicing drawing straight lines

Horizontal, 1 inch, 3 inch, 5 inch lines, next to one another, 1 small notebook page

Then do the same with vertical, 1 small notebook page

Then draw two dots on the page and draw a straight line between them, fill 3 pages with random lines

Try to draw quickly so each line is appealing and smooth, draw from the shoulder

Confident_Fortune_32

2023-01-29 17:14

If you put a bunch of paper and jumbo crayolas on a table, and let a bunch of v small children loose on it, what do they do? They grab the crayons and just start colouring, with gusto, without forethought, without a plan, just for the joy of mark-making and no other reason.

Fast forward ten years in those same kids' lives, give them drawing materials, and they may shyly refuse, saying, "well, I'm not v good at drawing"

When a adults see a little kid colouring, they often ask: "what are you drawing?" I think it's a terrible question, bc it is nudging the kid toward goal-oriented product-focused work.

I absolutely do blame our deeply misguided education system for making play and learning into a goal-driven chore, where someone else judges the value of the effort and assigns a grade to it.

The "free play" portion of this adventure isn't to get something at the end. It's just for the simple pleasure of mark making, of making friends with the implement and the paper, of having fun, of a goal-less activity. The product is irrelevant. There's no grade. There's no test. There's no judge, external OR internalized.

If you take a toddler for a walk in a park or on a forest trail, it's a v slow process, bc they will stop over and over to pick up a beautiful pine cone or an appealing pebble. In that moment, those things are priceless treasures to them. That mindset is what's most helpful here.

whitestuffonbirdpoop

2023-01-30 21:08

you could learn how to do some 30 second and 2 minute gesture drawings(beginning videos of proko figure drawing, they are on youtube), do 5 of each every day for a month during your study time. you'll be inventing decent, simple figures in different poses before you know it. you can come back to dab later.

during the 50% fun time, you don't need to accomplish anything. it's difficult to understand, but you'll get used to allowing yourself to draw with no "should" in your head. (e.g https://youtu.be/MJYGFwGhHnA )