2014 to 2015: My Year Making Focused, Time-Efficient Art Pt. 2
Read part 1 here.
How to spend your time wisely
First, let`s talk about time management. People complain about not having enough time to study and better themselves but it really comes down to where are you spending your time. To keep track of myself I use a little app called RescueTime that runs in the background and keep counts on which apps I am using for how long. If you spend 9 hours a day browsing 9gag and not studying, then you will not improve. Let`s take a moment to say this out loud: you have to INVEST time to IMPROVE. Therefore, the more aware you are of how you are spending your time, the better you can estimate your progress. To do that effectively you will need will power. You have to create an habit out of studying art. I personally am a very organised, results-driven person, so when I was facing this challenge I did a lot of research about time management techniques and one of them really worked for me. They call it SCRUM, and basically you need to create four columns like so:
I tend to color code my assignments, so for example: the orange post-its are for commission-related tasks, the yellow ones are from my to-do list of a project I`m working on. The idea is you catalog your tasks based on urgency and work your way through the post-it stacks. This method works for me because I have visual cues to how productive I`m being and it makes me want to push myself harder and harder. Every person will be different when it comes to time management so I urge you to research other techniques that may fit your personality better.
Once you are able to focus more on your art, it comes to the question: what should you be doing with that time? Well, talking with other artists and through personal experience I have found two tips that should be pretty helpful. One of them is to start paintings often and do studies based on those painting`s needs. This helps if you have some grasp of the basics and is trying to study more specific subjects. For example, for Leesha`s painting “The Last Matriach”, she does a bunch of metal studies and skins studies for the dragon. On my livestream channel I do some studies like this for a commission live. The other way is to do studies and generate paintings from them. If you were studying anatomy for some time it would probably be nice to do a painting with a figure in it so you can apply what you learned. Just remember that studies ARE NOT a substitute for proper reference when doing a finished painting. In both ways the goal is to study something and apply that study right after you`re done, so that you can load up your brain with information you can access later. This is especially useful for concept artists who usually work in a tight deadline with very little reference. Another upside of both those methods is if you are doing a personal painting of something you want to paint, the results tend to come out much faster and much better.
Lastly, how much time should you put into those paintings and studies? That depends. I see a lot of “pretty studies” on Facebook Groups and forums and I personally feel that the better studies are the most focused in what you want to learn. For instance, if you want to study skin and its effects, you don`t need to render an entire figure, background and clothing alike. If you are doing an exact copy that might help you to some degree, as Anthony Jones explains in his video “How to Study”.
Now, when it comes to paintings, you should spend all the time you need to take it to a reasonable professional level. Personally, I create a folder and fill it up with work from artists I admire that work for a company I am targeting and see if my work blends in; if not, try to figure out why. There is no cheating in this: check values, rendering styles, level of detail of other paintings and compare, compare, compare. I also urge you to time yourself when doing those so you can notice improvements on your speed over time. It will also be helpful when you get your first gigs and will need to know how much time it took you to make a painting.
Motivate yourself through discipline and autosuggestion
Nowadays there is a lot of focus on ideas like procrastination and being motivated in order to do things. I spent most of my study years believing that and it did not take me very far. The fact is that anything can be transformed into a habit — and once it happens, there is little you can do not to do it. This is where you want to lead your art study habits. You only need 15 seconds of courage to begin doing what you need to do. To give myself that push I usually write positive words on post-its and glue them on my monitor where I can see them every time I doubt myself.
But if, for example, the task at hand seems to great, do what the pros do: break it up into smaller tasks, build your confidence doing what you feel comfortable first. There are two main ways I`ve heard people talk about tackling tasks when doing a professional painting: you either start by what you feel most confident doing and get motivated by it; or, you begin tackling what annoys you the most in the painting. Both ways of thinking lead to different results in my opinion and an artist is wise to know when to apply each idea.
Also, bear in mind that in most things but specially in art, quantity trumps quality. You don`t want to spend ages planning for that magnificent painting that will take years to be finished. When you are learning, you need to apply your concepts in a consistent way, learn from your mistakes and move on to the next idea. Some people might disagree on that and that is alright, as I said in the beginning of the text, this is what worked with me.
Stay tuned for more info on Part 3!
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