Friday, January 31, 2014

10,000 Hours - Art (NSFW)

There has been a lot of sickness floating around the house lately and business pulling Laura away which has given me less time to do my art. Unfortunately this has given me a lot of great excuses not to get things done the way they should be done and I have spent little to no time drawing.

Until today.

We're healthy again and Laura's returned home. I spent some time drawing, added a to do line on my to do list to draw at least one page of art per day, and am hoping to be back in the swing of things.

One thing for sure? I need to work on hands, feet, and proportions. I actually really like what I did with this particular drawing but after a few seconds of looking at it all I see are the flaws.




I tried to do some water color but absolutely nothing good came of it at this point. I'll keep practicing but I have nothing to share on that end. Maybe I'll do a charcoal drawing and try to capture the hair in water color pencils. That might look nice.

My goals for next week:


  • Draw more hands and feet
  • Practice water colors, especially hair
  • Do at least 10 30-second-long figure gestures per day and one 10 minute

Friday, January 24, 2014

Let's Talk About Who I Am

A few years ago I learned from a doctor that I have a testosterone count lower than most women. The doctor asked a few questions about what my teen years were like and explained that I probably had low testosterone my entire life, never reaching the levels I should have had; it was a bit of a revelation, if not a surprise.

Interestingly, what led to the diagnosis was me talking to the doctor about how I was depressed and listless. He ran a bunch of extra blood tests and told me that this was probably the cause of the depression, listlessness, and low energy.

For the last few years I've been on Androgel (a testosterone replacement therapy) on and off. Losing insurance meant I had to go off it since it's ridiculously expensive and then I was finally able to go back on it when I moved out here.

Here's the thing:

I am literally a different person when I'm on this drug.

The depression isn't 100% gone; I still have some bad days. The listlessness, though, is gone and I feel driven to do things. Even on my bad days I get off my butt and get a few things done around the house, whereas before a bad day meant that I didn't get out of bed or if I did then I didn't get off the couch. On good days I'm a whirlwind of productivity. The difference is insane.

I'm more inclined to get things done, stick with plans on how I want to handle my day, and am generally happier. Granted, I'm still learning how to use this energy; I spent roughly 30 years trying to be as unproductive as possible so now here I am with the energy and drive to get things done and I'm not quite as good at them as I could be since I don't have the practice.

There are a few downsides to the drug though. It's not a perfect solution, it's just close to one.

I'm angrier than I used to be. Those that know me know that I'm one of the calmest people on the face of the Earth. With Androgel, I have a very faint level of frustration that flows in the background of my brain. It comes to the front when things don't go as planned and it results in me being a bit more snappy than I should be.

I feel like I'm a huge jerk when I'm in that mood but I'm told that my level of "jerk" is quite a few other people's level of "being a human being," so that makes me feel good. I'm just not used to anger; it's a part of me but one that I have almost never had to deal with. I could push it aside in the past whereas now it's strong enough to push my rational brain to the back for a bit, at its worst.

I'm more creative too, on Androgel. I've been drawing, writing, and following my passions a bit more than in the past.

Because now I have passions.

I wonder if those things are linked: Anger and passion. Can you have one without the other? Has the lack of one strong emotion robbed me of the other?

Has the lack of testosterone robbed me of the strong feelings needed to follow my dreams? Will having raised the levels in my blood help me find talents and skills I never knew I had, or maybe just help me develop them because I can enjoy things on a level that I never have before?

I'll never know what could have been. I'll only know what comes next and even that I'll only know after it happens.

In the meantime, I'll be following my passions. I need to stay on testosterone.

The truth of the matter is that I like who I am better when I'm on it. I feel more like the real me even though this version of me hasn't been around even 1/10th the time I've been on this planet.

Thursday, January 23, 2014

My 10,000 Hours - Art (NSFW)

Just finished this morning. Charcoal pencil.
We took a small vacation to Maryland so that Laura could apply for a good job. I brought my art supplies but I felt kind of strange about pulling them out while staying with friends; pretentious, maybe? I don't know.

Either way, I lost about a week of time to practice.

I'm back to it now, though. I'm finding that I'm liking charcoal more and more for figure drawing; there's something about the way I hold it and the way it flows that just works well for me.
Pencil, done before going on vacation.
I really enjoy figure drawing and had a realization yesterday while going through models on Pixel Lovely's model tool: If I really want to draw something, it needs to inspire me.

That might seem silly to some and others might be thinking "well, duh" but either way it was a revelation to me. I need to be inspired by whatever it is that I'm drawing to really do a decent* job at it.



Mostly 30-second pose drawings, and Lois.
If I'm just flipping through doing 30-second poses, trying to capture as much as possible in as short a time as possible (example to the left) then it's okay if the image doesn't inspire me, though I do better on the ones that capture my attention.

But if I'm taking ten minutes to draw something I need it to capture my attention. I flip through the models, looking for something that makes me almost literally say "Oh!"

I'm back on track and now I know what to look for. I can't wait to see where this goes.

I'd like to try a few different mediums this week. Maybe pastels, or watercolor pencils. We'll see; I don't feel ready for them yet but the point is to do new things, learn new things, otherwise I'll never be ready.

*For some degree of decent, mostly being "as decent as I can do it right now."

Wednesday, January 22, 2014

I'm Not A Liar But Sometimes I Fib To Myself

Today I woke up at 5 AM, checked on the baby, and had a bad morning. Dealing with baby throw-up is not the way to start a good day. This doesn't mean that today has to be a bad day, of course, but there are better ways to start your day and it seems the start of your day often dictates the general shape of the rest of it.

I have a list of chores to do around the house on HabitRPG, a website that makes to do lists into an RPG-like game. It's surprisingly effective for me.

One of those chores is "tidy the living room."

I sat here for the past 30 minutes staring at the mess around me while my little one napped and all I could think was "There is no way in hell I am getting up and cleaning this room. Not even a little bit."



I then got up and immediately started tidying the living room, then checked it off my list as being done for the day.

Oh, if you looked at the room you wouldn't call it tidied. I barely call it tidied (though it is quite a bit better than it was before I started) but today I need it to count as done.

I need to be able to lie to myself.

I'm not a liar. Not really. But sometimes I need to fib to myself. I need to be able to tell myself that "this is okay" even when it's not.

If I couldn't lie to myself like that, I think I'd go crazy. It's not a lie in that I believe it; there's definitely an internal wink and a nod that tells me I know what's what. The lie, instead, is in saying that I "gave it my all."

I didn't. I don't have "my all" to give today.

I half-assed it. I didn't want to even do that much. There's no way I was going to whole-ass it. Half an ass is as good as it's going to get right now.


There are only two things that are getting whole-assed today:


  1. Keeping the baby alive and happy.
  2. A super-secret surprise for Laura's birthday.
Those two things? They get all my energy. Everything else will get done when I get to it, for some value of "done."

And then I'll check them off the list, done or not, because I need it today.

And that's okay, even if it's not.





The pictures have absolutely nothing to do with anything, in case you're curious. See? I even half-assed this entry.

Thursday, January 9, 2014

10,000 Hours - Art (NSFW)

I've been practicing my drawing every day for about two weeks now and while I am still seeing obvious glaring flaws in what I do, I've become much more happy with the results.

One of the reasons for this is that I've discovered a new (to me) technique called "linear gesture drawing" and I really love the way that it flows onto the paper. Something about the technique feels extremely natural to me. I know I still need a lot of work but when I'm done drawing something I feel like I've actually done something cool, whereas when I was mostly following drawing tutorials I would finish it and feel like I hadn't actually created anything; I had just copied someone else's work and that was it. Even when I'd end up with a kind of cool looking Stitch (from Lilo & Stitch) for example, I'd say "Yeah, but I just did it step-by-step. ANYONE could do that."

When I finish doing a linear gesture drawing, I can say "I did that!"

Below are some not-safe-for-work drawings that I did of art models I found online using a great figure drawing tool. In the future I'll probably find some clothed models to draw but for now this is all I have to share to show what I'm doing.

The only problem is that I'm not sure where to go from here. Once I get decent at this form of drawing, what's the next step? How do I improve, and what skills do I need to add to my current repertoire? I'm not sure. I'm sure I'll figure it out, eventually. For now, though, I'll just keep doing what I enjoy and hopefully keep improving!

Now, everything below this line is NSFW. Fair warning.



 A good friend came to visit last night and during a lull I decided to show her what I've been working on. I flipped to this picture and she laughingly said "Bow chicka wow wow!"

I was just happy she could tell what the drawing was!
I'm particularly proud of this drawing. I just really like the way the blanket came together, and think that even though her face is drawn in a VERY simplistic style I captured it as a face.

That sounds ridiculous but some of the faces I've drawn have ended up with a result that makes me go "Did I just draw a golem, or something?"

I'm happy with this one. Hopefully in 2 or 3 weeks I'll look at it and see all the flaws that I don't make anymore.

That's the hope, right?

Tuesday, January 7, 2014

Resolutions: Fitness

I always resolve to get fit, jump into it in a big way, do well right up until I don't, and then fail spectacularly. I like everything in that right up until everything after "do well" and I'd like to change that bit. Here's how I plan on doing it:

I'm using HabitRPG as a way of keeping track of my to do lists, my daily chores/activities, and my resolutions. I can tell it what list items are repeated daily, which list items happen on only special days, and what items don't need to be done daily but only need to get done once. I can even set it up so that at a glance I can see the small goals that lead up to finishing a Big Goal.

It's pretty cool.

Tonight I did what I thought would be a good first workout after not doing any kind of working out for a very long time: 25 crunches, 25 wall push ups (yeah, I'm kind of a wuss), and 25 leg lifts. Small, doable, and a way of preparing my body for harder workouts later on. I figured I could up the amount in a couple of weeks, just to ease myself into it.

I learned that I'm very, very out of shape. (I'd use a third "very" there but the use of three "very's" is a major sign of a deranged mind.)

My arms were jelly. My stomach was cramping. My legs were...well, my legs were okay so I guess one out of three ain't not half bad?

I may have to cut them back if I'm going to do them daily. The reason I've failed in the past has a large part to do with just jumping in, not caring if it hurts, and pushing myself to a point where the next day I'm physically incapable of doing it again. Then, after one failure, I give up. Oh, I convince myself I'm not giving up, that I'm just "healing for one more day" but that becomes two days, then a week, then "some day."

My hope is that going slowly and easing my way into it will work because it won't be a major time investment, I won't be hurting myself, and I won't then want to quit due to the pain/mental exhaustion. I've been told this works; now it's time to test it.

My 10,000 Hours - Art

For Christmas I received an easel/art set from an amazing woman who obviously knows me well and loves me.

I've been experimenting, practicing, learning, and having fun. While my little girl is taking her daily nap I pull up website tutorials or watch some video tutorials on YouTube.

Most of the stuff I draw isn't worth sharing yet but it's getting better and I'm seeing improvement. I'd like to start sharing my drawings at the end of the week, maybe Thursdays.

I was talking to somebody about "inborn talent" the other day, about how I feel I don't have any. This friend laughed and said neither did he, which I called out as a big fat lie because I've seen what he can do with a pencil and something to draw on: he is an artist verging on genius.

When I called him out on this, he explained something to me and really opened my eyes:

When I was a kid I played video games, read books, played sports. He drew.
When I was in school writing stories, reading books, and talking (awkwardly) to girls, he was drawing.
When I was an adult, working, reading books, playing video games, or talking (awkwardly) to women, he was drawing. And talking to women.
Even when he was hanging out with friends or doing something he loved, he had a drawing he was working on.

His "inborn talent" came from his love of drawing that started when he was young. Was he a better artist than most other 3 year olds? Maybe, sure. He had a grasp of shapes that other kids didn't have. Beyond that, though, it was practice that made him better. Constant practice. His "inborn talent" accounted for the most very basics and beyond that? Beyond that he had to work hard, learn, and constantly keep drawing.

If it takes 10,000 hours to master something, then inborn talent accounts for maybe the first 50 to 100 hours of practice. Beyond that it's all about slugging away at it, chipping away a block one piece at a time and learning new things. Something people don't tell you is that if you work and put in that first 50/100/200 hours of diligent practice, other folks will think that you have inborn talent too.

I have maybe 5 solid hours of work in on this art thing, half an hour or so each day, and I'm already seeing improvement. When I'm at 100 or so, I'll be a "natural."