Steve Huston Draws From Life
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Balancing Top Down and Bottom Up Thinking To Skyrocket Your Growth
🕑 Added 2023-05-01 14:59:13 +0000 UTCIf we can have a basic understanding of how creative thinking happens and very simple ways to tap into that, we never have to worry about that frustrating plateaus that stall our growth.
In other words, we never have to be a slave to the limitations of whatever how-to methods we've put ourselves in service of.
Instead, we can create an almost limitless number of possibilities for what we can do in our practice and through those methods.
Having the right mindset about your craft is ever bit as important as the craft itself.
I hope you take the time to go through this very important training.
Suggested Homework:
Using the reference provided, see if you can't use "beginner's mind" to see that figure or that body part with fresh, curious eyes.
You can do this by drawing the same thing (simply) several different times, each time pushing one idea.
Maybe push the tilt of that head, a little more and a little more again over several drawings.
May it's making the forehead and cheekbones more and more boxy over several drawings.
Another great way is to do a daily curiosity journal about what made you curious each day and how you plan to act on that.
And maybe in the short term limit it to curiosity about how you, the artist is looking at that thing.
Have fun!
Steve
Comments
Eric Davenport
Massive session. A mind trick I've used to bridge across boredom dates back to my childhood. I grew up on a ranch ... and, I was a very active child. My mother would shoo me out of the house to play in the fields, hills and streams first thing in the morning and could only come in for lunch. But occasionally I could come in the house, say late in the afternoon, and in those days there were only 3 channels on the TV. If allowed, I'd turn on the TV, a rather new technology at the time. Invariably, there would be nothing on that interested me at all. But the privilege to watch TV and to be in the house was great ... so, I'd tell my self that the program that was on at the moment had to be of interest to somebody or they wouldn't put it on TV. In those days being on TV was a really really big deal. This mindset of recognizing that the program had to be of interest to someone caused me to look at it with different eyes (bottom up) ... I became curious and I would settle in to watch. But, it wasn't but 30 minutes or so and mother would say, "Eric, have you fed hay yet? You know your father expects that to be done by the time he gets home." And back out into the fresh air ... and running. Always running ... running everywhere. Thank you for what you do, Steve. Eric
