The Plan

Success doesn't come from running in blind, in order to achieve what I need to get done to better myself in these coming years, I need a plan. This post will cover the tactics I will use to push myself ahead no matter what fate throws at me. More after the break.


Methods
These will be the methods I use to make sure that I stay on track, and have enough concentration and willpower to do what I need to do everyday.

Willpower Conservation
This is a method I learned about on the site 'The Art of Manliness'. The articles which cover willpower say that you should concentrate on improving one aspect of your life at a time. The reason is that you only have a limited amount of willpower in the day, and if you're worrying about improving multiple aspects which you need to remind yourself to do everyday, that willpower gets depleted quickly.

Eventually I want to be able to workout on a regular basis, while still drawing most of the day, and learn to eat better, and become more well read; this is all while working a full time job. If I tried to improve all of those now, knowing how I've done in the past, I'll fail all of them and wonder what went wrong.

Knowing all of what I want to get done, it would be hard for me to sustain fighting myself to do everything I need to. So I will concentrate on one aspect at a time until it becomes a habit. Once one of my focus areas becomes a habit, I'll add another aspect I want to improve to my workload.

Implementation Intentions
Another method I learned from 'The Art of Manliness'. This is about telling yourself that at a certain time each day or certain days, you will do a specific task. I have already starting using this and have found good results in this. This uses a "if, then" statement to tell you what your going to do if a certain condition appears.

For example:
My I.I. for getting drawing done after work is as follows: "If it is after work and I just ate, then draw."

I always get done with work around meal times, so it's perfect for me to schedule drawing after I eat. Implementation Intentions also help with building a habit, since you're doing the same thing after certain events, it gets ingrained in your mind.



Focus Areas in Drawing
First in my list of areas I want to improve is drawing, and making drawing a daily habit except for something that I need to tell myself to do after work. This must be made a habit before I return to The Art Department in the spring of 2013. (More on that later)

List of Focus Areas

• Composition
• Figure Drawing and Construction
• Painting (Digital and Traditional)
• Media Experimentation/Mark Making
• Light and Form
• Perspective
• Imagination Drawing
• Life Drawing

The first six points are my main focus of studies, since they encompass most of the basics and essentials of drawing. The last two are things that I need to implement more into my routine. Drawing from imagination is something that you would think would come easy right? Not when I first started really studying art. I took all of my time drawing and copying from reference and books, and by the time I wanted to draw from imagination again, I couldn't, because I didn't use what I learned to make it stick. I've gotten better, but I would like for me to hit a 50/50 ratio between study/reference and imagination drawing, so I can concentrate on retaining and using all the information I learned from my studies.

Life drawing is something that I almost never do, and it shows in my work. I'll definitely be using life drawing during my light and form studies, but I need to start drawing people, objects, and scenes from life more often. Start carrying that sketchbook around and get drawing.

So, with all that in mind, I need to start writing some short and long term goals down. To a productive and focused week!