Wednesday 6 February 2013

Drudgery-shmudgery.

I'm sure everyone has felt deflated, unmotivated, in a creative rut or whatever you decide to name it (and if you haven't, well....then....neeeeerrr), so I decided to make this post on some of the top tips I have found whilst I have be scouring the internet for solutions....

(In no particular order)

Top Tip #1 - Just start scribbling. 

"Just start scribbling. The first draft is never your last draft. Nothing you write is by accident." Taken from this article.

If i've ever tried to help someone with how to start learning to draw, I usually tell them a couple of things to get going: 1. Start with the cheapest rubbishy paper and lots of it, 2. don't through any of the rubbish away. 

When I used to run life drawing classes for a social club at University, I started off with a warm up session to start with (like most of the life drawing classes I had ever attended). So people could scribble on the page, get warmed up, have a play, using the medium of their choice. 

I tried to encrouage the people that felt less confident to just make some random scribbles and scew up the first page a bit, so then the paper is ruined and anything after they produced on that page would only be better. It was basically an exercise to help them forget about a big gaping white blank canvas in front of them. They always looked like a rabbit caught in headlights when they first started. But the most rewarding thing was I saw this technique help them gain much more confdence in their ability and not worry about what they put down on the page. I read somewhere once, "well, are you really going to frame it and hang it in your hall?" - and this really made me stop caring about making mistakes in my drawings, if anything, mistakes are what you want, as you can only learn from them! I think this is important to apply to everything, just do it, you learn from doing. 

Top Tip #2 - Find Your Slogan 

I like this first tip from this website. I've para-phrased it below:  

Your slogan doesn't have to be a long meaningful deep poem or anything like that. Aristotle has a brilliant way of looking at things:


"We are what we repeatedly do"

He also links to someones struggle with motivation, be sure to give it a quick read and have a look at the comments too.

"If you say to yourself “I am what I repeatedly do” and then you ask yourself “What do I repeatedly to every single day? What does my average day look like?”, it really makes you face reality."
I don't believe it's critical or something you should stress about if you don't have your own, but I personally love the idea of it developing eventually, even if it's a feeling, rather then words. But I definitely think Aristotle is right, if you practise everyday, youll become what they want to be. You're own "slogan" might come to you as you progress in you career, hobby or whatever it may be. For me, in most recent months (hence the blog) is "Remeber to get inspired".

Top Tip #3 - last but not least "Start small. Really small" 
taken from this website

Sometimes the night before you've had that feeling, "tomorrow is going to be sooo productive, i'm going to get up adn do this and this and this" adn then you wake up, and you don't feel like it much. Or you feel like you've come to a dead end in something.

Come at it again from a different angle and start really small. I notoiced recently (if i've found myself in a procastinating whole) I can rick my mind back into my work. I'll start with somethign really tiny I can complete. Then before I know it i'm in full swing and a few hours have disappeared.

"If you are having a hard time getting started, it may be because you’re thinking too big. If you want to exercise, for example, you may be thinking that you have to do these intense workouts 5 days a week. No — instead, do small, tiny, baby steps. Want to wake up early? Don’t think about waking at 5 a.m. Instead, think about waking 10 minutes earlier for a week. That’s all. Baby steps."

Anyway, I hope these little tips help you with some motivational bugs I've come across along the way, there's sooo many tips on the internet it's untrue, so it's impossible to note them all.

....and here's some inspirational videos for your viewing pleasure ;)



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