019 Study schedule without time constraints

It´s been a long time since my last post and a lot of stuff happened. I changed my study schedule, participated in an online art school and focused generally more on practicing my base skills.

I kind of divided the way I learn into a simple approach where you build upon the foundation of these basic themes:

Lineart – Values – Color

Without good lineart (by that, I mostly mean proportion, shape, perspective) a painting will fail, even if values and color is done right. This is the foundation and starting point for all paintings. 

Values are the next important step, as a well done lineart with well done values can be a finished painting on its own.

Color is the cherry on top of every painting. It conveys mood and atmosphere and lets a painting really shine when well done

For most of the time this year, I practiced my basic drawing skill in lineart, although you should never separately study one subject on its own entirely. You can put your focus to one aspect to intensify studying.

I also found that I had troubles to follow any practice schedule with a set amount of time for any one subject. After trying out various schedules, I found what works best for me is basing my schedule  on workload. With a set time to study a certain subject, I drifted off and started to draw against time rather than concentrate on studying. And a 1 hour study isn´t any good when you are not focused on what you do, but only on how much time has past. 

By workload I mean, I set an amount of work I want finished by the end of the day and stick to these mini deadlines.

At the moment, I work with this amount to be done daily:

 One page of gesture drawings from reference

One page of gesture drawings from imagination

One page of studies of various subjects (at the moment mostly anatomy and some design studies)

    2-3 quick value studies

A double page in my sketchbook (A5 Moleskin) with studies and/or sketches from imagination (any subject I want, currently focusing on figures)

 

-          Part of a more detailed Master study (old masters and painters still alive, I consider masters) in color (about ¼ to 1/3, meaning I finish one every 3-4 days)

The advantage of this study schedule is that I don´t need to constantly watch the time and I don´t have to stick to one subject only for a set amount of time. So I could start with gestures and go to some sketchbook sketches and back to gestures again followed by a master study and doing some more gestures after that spread out across the day until the workload is fullfilled. 

Another advantage of this method : it trains one to stick to deadlines!

The funny thing is, I manage to practice more in hours per day at a higher level of motivation than I did with a timed schedule.