| ********************************************************** YouCanDraw.com Insider's E-magazine *********************************************************** Issue #2, 2 November 1998 Dedicated to You, the up and coming Caricature Artist In today's issue: 1) Time Management: A little Bit Goes a long Way 2) Progress Note ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- re-WELCOME! Welcome aboard all new subscribers! I'd like to take a second to thank all of you for your interest in YouCanDraw.com Thank you! It's very encouraging to me to see there's such an interest out there in drawing caricatures. I'm looking forward to a long lasting partnership with all of you. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 1) Here's a quickie. A lot of people
say it's difficult to find 2 hours a day to practice
their drawing. I know I sure do! Problem is, if you think
you must have 2 hours, or 1 hour or 3 hours a day to
draw, how often do you really find that kind of time?
Like almost never? And if you can't it's so easy to get
down on yourself for not finding it. Then, worse, you
beat yourself up again for not drawing at all because you
couldn't find 3 hours! A vicious cycle. So there's got to
be something better. I got a guitar teacher friend. He
tells his students "you don't go to the gym and lift
weights It's no new idea, and I wholly agree with him. What he recommends - and what I'm going to recommend here is this: Start with 15 minutes, 3 - 5 days a week. Don't put any more pressure on yourself than that. If you start getting engrossed in the drawing, you'll spend more time drawing - belive me! The object is just to get started! Even if the very exercises I recommend suggest 30 to 60 minutes - that's just suggested. If you have to break up those 30 minutes assignments into 2 different sittings, fine! But you did them! (I read a quote that maturity and skill are learned in leisure, not forcing.) If you do 60 minutes Monday, but only do 15 minutes Wednesday, that's great! All you were required to do was the minimum 15 minutes. Do that, and your drawing will progress. THEN REWARD YOURSELF! Starting anything - writing, drawing, guitar - is scary. Especially if you feel like your self worth is on the line. (And getting going on any long lost dream, something "you've always wanted to do", makes you feel vulnerable. That's great if it doesn't, but most of the time it will - the more something has tripped you up, the more it's probably something you're supposed to be doing.) 2) Progress Note I've uploaded the "Nose: Pure contour" ,
"Modified Contour", and began on the
"Negative Space" section. Slowly and
surely...I've had a few people comment that they'd like
more pictures. I know a few of the lessons are scant on
illustrations. If you see An invitation: If you'd like to submit a drawing for a particular lesson that you think will aid explaining the lesson, by all means submit it to me and I'll upload it into the lessons with your name in the credit. So take care, keep drawing, and I always enjoy
your letters and comments. |