Perhaps “getting better at drawing” isn't actually about what you produce or how happy or unhappy you are with the resultant product..
It could instead be about how comfortable you feel producing it. How comfortable you can be while doing something that currently makes you somewhat uncomfortable, which may cause you to somewhat lose connection with what you are working with or on, perhaps due to wishing something different were happening – such as type of pose, length of pose, number of poses, subject matter, thoughts of what others might think of your style, technique, results, or whatever.
Many years ago, I read about a study that was done on a number of different people doing different activities – I've forgotten what all they did. Each person studied has essentially "mastered" whatever they were doing, yet they continued to practice on a daily basis. The question was: what, if anything might they be gaining from their continued practice, since they no longer seemed to get any "better" at doing their activity.
One thing that was needed was some quantifiable way of measuring whatever might be occurring. One measure they used was the amount of oxygen a person used to accomplish whatever they were doing. What was revealed was that each person became more efficient at doing their activity, measured in terms of less oxygen needing to be consumed or "burned" to produce their masterful results. In other words, the people developed their capacity to produce the same results with less work or with greater ease.
Even longer ago, I was reading the book Cache Lake Country which included a brief description of a masterful traveler here in canoe country. It described the seemingly effortless ease, grace, smoothness and beauty of how such a man could pick up, flip and shoulder a canoe and carry it across a portage, then flip and lower it into the water at the other end. A beginner, in comparison, would likely struggle awkwardly with lots of huffing, puffing and grunting and perhaps bumping and banging to produce the equivalent result of getting his craft from one lake to another. It's easy to simply observe the differences in the flow of what is happening, no oxygen measurements needed.
Just some thoughts for you to consider. Your personal "measurements" could be what sorts of thought trains you pursue and also how you feel about yourself while drawing or while evaluating what you produce rather than what your actual evaluation might be of what you've produced.
Thanks for the thoughtful response, Karl. The canoe country image is a great one, effortless execution as a mark of mastery. I think my blog post was me working through something adjacent to that, though maybe I didn't land it clearly.
The self-consciousness and comfort with process are certainly part of it, but what keeps nagging at me is something further downstream: once the drawing is competent, what makes it matter? What makes one image memorable and another forgettable?
So for me it's becoming less a question of flow and more a question of intention and design. In any case, thinking out loud is partly what the blog is for, so I appreciate the engagement and the perspective.
Perhaps “getting better at drawing” isn't actually about what you produce or how happy or unhappy you are with the resultant product..
It could instead be about how comfortable you feel producing it. How comfortable you can be while doing something that currently makes you somewhat uncomfortable, which may cause you to somewhat lose connection with what you are working with or on, perhaps due to wishing something different were happening – such as type of pose, length of pose, number of poses, subject matter, thoughts of what others might think of your style, technique, results, or whatever.
Many years ago, I read about a study that was done on a number of different people doing different activities – I've forgotten what all they did. Each person studied has essentially "mastered" whatever they were doing, yet they continued to practice on a daily basis. The question was: what, if anything might they be gaining from their continued practice, since they no longer seemed to get any "better" at doing their activity.
One thing that was needed was some quantifiable way of measuring whatever might be occurring. One measure they used was the amount of oxygen a person used to accomplish whatever they were doing. What was revealed was that each person became more efficient at doing their activity, measured in terms of less oxygen needing to be consumed or "burned" to produce their masterful results. In other words, the people developed their capacity to produce the same results with less work or with greater ease.
Even longer ago, I was reading the book Cache Lake Country which included a brief description of a masterful traveler here in canoe country. It described the seemingly effortless ease, grace, smoothness and beauty of how such a man could pick up, flip and shoulder a canoe and carry it across a portage, then flip and lower it into the water at the other end. A beginner, in comparison, would likely struggle awkwardly with lots of huffing, puffing and grunting and perhaps bumping and banging to produce the equivalent result of getting his craft from one lake to another. It's easy to simply observe the differences in the flow of what is happening, no oxygen measurements needed.
Just some thoughts for you to consider. Your personal "measurements" could be what sorts of thought trains you pursue and also how you feel about yourself while drawing or while evaluating what you produce rather than what your actual evaluation might be of what you've produced.
Thanks for the thoughtful response, Karl. The canoe country image is a great one, effortless execution as a mark of mastery. I think my blog post was me working through something adjacent to that, though maybe I didn't land it clearly.
The self-consciousness and comfort with process are certainly part of it, but what keeps nagging at me is something further downstream: once the drawing is competent, what makes it matter? What makes one image memorable and another forgettable?
So for me it's becoming less a question of flow and more a question of intention and design. In any case, thinking out loud is partly what the blog is for, so I appreciate the engagement and the perspective.