It’s better that our training is guided by wisdom. Regardless of what it is that we do or study, we need wisdom. Life tells us this. We entered this world helpless and needed the wisdom of our parents. The same is true of art. Without the wisdom and insight of those that went before us, much of our training will be aimless. This is why I focus on wisdom and insight and the MIND because they’re rare to come by. Academic knowledge are abundant but wisdom… that’s something else.
I think it is both too, but my friend was right to say that to make me not hoard something that more or less has many overlapping lesson. Since what I need is just basic fundamental knowledge and a lot of practice.
That is the key. Here’s an excerpt from the manual I’m working to put together:
What I’m about to share and present here are nothing new. In fact, Solomon would have agreed, “History merely repeats itself. It has all been done before. Nothing under the sun is truly new. Sometimes people say, ‘Here is something new!’ But actually it is old; nothing is ever truly new.” (Ecclesiastes 1:9-10). At this point in history, nothing in art is new. However, what is new is how old concepts and principles are taught and the way they’re organized and presented. The thing with books is that there are countless art books out there. On this, Solomon would advise us to “Be careful, for writing books is endless, and much study wears you out.” (Ecclesiastes 12:12). As a self-taught artist I have wasted much money over the years buying books and I can say that it’s the same old concepts and principles recycled and re-interpreted. Truly, there is nothing new under the sun, and the manual that you’re reading right now is no exception.
Many beginner artists have been wearied out, searching for that hidden secret knowledge. Last night I wrote a post to respond to a thread on here to guide a beginner artist but changed my mind and didn’t post it and wasn’t planning on posting it, but it seems to be more appropriate to post it here since Bruce Lee was brought up again. Post Begins:
When you sit down to create a piece of art, there are a lot of things that go through the mind of an artist, such as: Lighting, Color, Proportion, Anatomy, Edge, Composition etc… These things can all happen at once in the mind, or at least, the mind of an artist processes these things very quickly through years of experience. But when you’re learning or starting out, it’s best to tackle each one individually. For example, let’s say you’re struggling with proportion. Spend some time just exploring proportion until you have a better grasp of it. You will learn much quicker without discouraging yourself in the process. Trying to learn and accomplish everything at once will discourage you because doing all these things at once is what you do when you sit down to make an art piece, but not when you’re learning. You have to be strategic in your learning. Bruce Lee once said, “I fear not the man who has practiced 10,000 kicks once, but I fear the man who has practiced one kick 10,000 times.” Take whatever it is that you’re struggling with and practice it 10,000 times! 10,000 is an exaggeration to make a point. I believe that’s the best art advice you’ll ever hear coming from a master martial artist. Back in 2019, I aimed to draw 300 pair of cylinders. Life happened and I couldn’t reach the 300 target, but managed to get around 150. Keep doing it and your mind will develop and discover things.
Here are some samples. I started off very basic. Then decided to use references. This means 300 poses since that was my target. Slowly I grew in confident. If you were to do this same exercise, you can do three or five poses per day. You don’t have to do this same exercise but I’m using this as an example to prove Bruce Lee’s point. If you repeatedly do the same thing over again and again, you will become dangerous in that one thing.
It might seems like you’re behind if all you do is just practice drawing the Sphere, Cube and Cylinder but these three will help you to draw both what you see and from imagination. Even when it comes to lighting and color, these three will be your friends and guides. I didn’t know how important these three are until I entered my late 30s. When it dawned on me that the mind can’t draw what is complicated that it has to simplify and break what the mind sees down into bits and pieces that it can understand and process, that’s when I saw the importance of the Sphere, Cube and Cylinder. Drawing the human head is hard! But drawing the Sphere and Cube is easy! Lighting the head is hard, but lighting the Sphere and Cube is easy! The trick is to trick the mind into seeing the head as sphere and cube. It’s all about simplification. If there are secrets to art, then the Sphere, Cube and Cylinder would be one of the secrets. We learn and do by simplification and divide and conquer.
Post Ends.
In the manual, I called that The Ten-Thousand Kicks Mindset. There is really no great secret. The difference between a professional artist and a beginner is that the professional has mastered the fundamentals or has a good grasp of it.
