Week 1 - What Worked, What Didn’t
Worked: having a plan.
This more or less made all the difference in the world. Being able to know what I was supposed to be doing each day, helped me track what I needed to pursue at each point.
Drawing while doing other activities (watching TV, meetings) have helped increase the time I dedicated to practice, although I haven’t purposefully tracked these hours.
However, following the plan proved at times difficult, mostly because life is Murphy’s counterpart to planning. Life events prevented me at least one day from sitting down and practicing as by the time I had time I was also too tired to mindfully practice.
Secondly, natural, physical limitations that I was unware of when I planned have pushed back on the schedule. Due to hand cramping, I found myself unable to continuously draw for an hour at a time, let alone three as I had planned for the weekend.
Finally, I have struggled with some of the exercises, in particular the rotating box, both in comprehension and actual practice.
Week 2 - Fewer Hours and Spaced Out Exercises
Instead of striving for an exact number, I’ll strive for a range.
One hour per day Tuesday through Friday is excessive at this point if done in a single setting. Instead two half-hours seem more doable.
Three hours of practice on weekends are definitely out of the question, so instead I’ll shoot for the same one-hour.
That puts the minimum at 6 hours of weekly practice, not including this review and planning as well and any other theoretical reading.
Exercises:
- Focus primary on what I struggled with last week: rotating cubes. Continue practicing ellipses.
- Allow for and introduce one simple decomposition exercise for each day.
- For the weekend, work on Chapter 2, Turning Edges into Objects, and Chapter 3, Adding Accuracty from Drawing for the Absolute and Utter Beginner .
- Read at least one more chapter of Right-Side and aim to also execute its practice.