Productivity Creativity
Got a few minutes here at home with the internet. I need to head back down to Camp Roberts here but I'll be back for good on Tuesday.
Pre-written for LiveJournal, 1 September 2009
Here’s a post that’s been stewing off and on for a while. A few months back, on the same page where I sketched Adolph Alexander Weinman’s “Descending Night,” I started jotting down thoughts which I titled “Thoughts on Productivity/Production.” I don’t think the title is quite right, it’s much less about productivity and more about being creative on a regular basis and several things have changed since I wrote it, aside from having more time to think on the subject. I’ll start by copying the original without comment and with as much as my original formatting as possible and then expand on each as needed.
~*~
Thoughts on Productivity/Production
• Schedule too “up in the air” to set Day goals. Need to be flexible! Scheduling things on certain days has pros: Get in the habit of doing it. Cons: missing a day is discouraging, esp. when work or other responsibilities is cause.
• Need to draw more. Skill kept improving during school because I was doodling/sketching nearly every day. Stagnating now (and losing sketchbook goal) because sketching happens rarely.
• Need to finish things.
o Try coloring while watching shows. -> Playing WoW, other games with some ‘downtime.’ (This requires colored pencil or marker coloring only. Paints = too messy, require immediate, constant attention. Requires pieces ready to color. Traditional materials only, since digital requires KidneyBean ->(However: see Sordid + Daily Show combination.)
• There is a breakdown between promising sketch that should be finished and actual finished product. Current process: sketch, scan, (print, ink, transfer to good paper,) color.
• Consider monthly goals (to take the place of werexchange)
• What constitutes a speed paint? (Remember 10-min meme?) - What happened to that anyway? Of 10 sketches… 7 completed! (good!) 1 is pencil sketch 2 are digital
Maybe… monthly goal of 1 “speed paint” in PhotoShop. Paint whatever, in 30 min.
~*~
Since writing this I have acted on some of these, others have suffered due to changing circumstances, while others are still the same. Starting from the top…
Schedule: My schedule is indeed still very up in the air. There has been a little stability recently in that I have three furlough days per month which must be taken on the first, second, and third Friday of each month. Additionally, Clayton has another job now and works Thursday through Sunday there, leaving me the weekend largely free with trapping typically on Tuesdays and Wednesdays and normal office days Mondays and Thursdays.
Except… right now I’m typing from the barracks at Camp Roberts after working the morning shift at the check station on this fourth day of a ten day hunt for posting later when I have internet access. The last new moon window had me trapping for rodents four days in a row. In a couple of weekends I’ll be demonstrating said trapping for a group of college students. The necessity of being flexible is still valid.
I have observed, however, that I may be able to reach minor weekly goals though daily remains out of reach. I’ve found that I need at least one day a week for domestic chores and skipping that is detrimental to my peace of mind. I can go without doing laundry for two to three weeks but by the middle of the third week I’m out of clean, comfortable socks and both sets of my uniform are generally no longer presentable.
Being able to take a day to do laundry, vacuum my rug so that it’s blue again rather than grey, bathe the beardies, and catch up on things in general is important not only so that things get done but so that I can mark the end of my week, even if it happens to be a Wednesday.
It seems that somehow I should be able to fit art into that, though lately I haven’t even been able to fit in gaming. (I no longer count DDR because the way we play it now makes it a workout. One that I want to fit in to my week at least three times, rather than the current one day or less.)
Need to draw more: I’m doing better on the sketchbook goal these days, though I still have a ways to catch up. I’m about halfway through and it’s September but I think I should be able to just make it if I keep up my current rate and definitely if I find more time to sketch. I had to change several things in the way I was thinking of it, though.
The big one was drilling into my head that I’m trying to complete MY sketchbook goal, not haikujaguar’s. I believe she is trying to produce a completed sketch that can become a painting per page or something in that vein. I’m just trying to fill this sucker by 31 December 2009.
I had to give myself permission to leave sketches undone, to fill a page with notes or lists with random doodles on the side, to leave a page largely blank except for the seed of something that could grow with time and a break, to fill a page with really random crap and nonsense. Essentially I had to give myself permission to do what I’ve done on random scraps of paper and my school notebooks for years and years except in one book dedicated to that purpose.
…But it looks like it will take time until that becomes a habit. I dated one page full of vague figures from posemanics.com as 7 Aug 2009 and since then have filled 8 pages, which isn’t super great, especially since two of them are from today. However, it is far superior from the beginning of the book where I completed 7 pages in the span of time between the beginning of January and the end of April. (I can tell by that silly page of doodles drawn in your apartment, dsch with arrin in the days after we saw Wicked.)
Finishing Things: Here’s where my circumstances changed. You may have noticed my reference to KidneyBean in the original list. Clearly it was written before my desktop died (it’s on the page just before the one with silly doodles mentioned above) and that certainly put a crimp all digital art as well as sharing anything (such as the Horrible Skipping Thing that I must inflict upon share with you all) or doing that Sordid + Daily Show combination I mentioned.
This combination was actually quite successful by the way. I was set up with my tablet and PhotoShop working on polishing up one of the pieces that came from the 10-minute sketch meme with all my tools and windows set up so that I could also have a small window open that streamed the Daily Show and still draw without becoming too distracted by what I was watching. I don’t think this method would work very well with something with a lot of action but its worth trying to repeat.
I’m guessing the principle is the same when coloring with tradmats and watching something but I still haven’t quite gotten around to trying it. Of course, at the moment I don’t have anything colored pencil/marker ready either. I did try sketching while watching TV today but I only really put pencil to paper during the commercials. (There was a Bones marathon. It was great. …And also like the only thing worth watching despite all those channels. The novelty of Dish TV at Camp Roberts has worn off.)
Breakdown: I was hoping that I could cut out several steps in my process between sketch and finished product with the smoother paper in the new sketchbook. I haven’t had a chance to find out because wow… I haven’t scanned ANYTHING from it yet. There’s plenty to scan now, I simply lack the ability to scan.
Which leads me to something that only just occurred to me: would the smoother paper will allow me to create a finished product I’m happy with in the sketchbook without having to transfer it to better paper? Something to experiment with once I get home.
Monthly Goals: The good thing about the werexchange, or at least the idea of it since it only revived for one round, is that it had a deadline. And while I consistently miss my own, self-imposed deadlines I make a serious effort to meet those set by others.
The “speed paint” plan was… It didn’t get a fair shake. I started off in April to do just that: paint whatever, in 30 minutes. I set aside that block of time and started throwing colorful pixels around in PhotoShop and ended up with a good start to some gift art for rantingmule’s birthday which had the added bonus of having a deadline that I did not set and so I made some real progress in coming up with a finished digital painting. And then, of course, my computer died and the file has since been trapped on a hard drive that is functional and safe but not accessible since other critical parts (motherboard, for example) are nonfunctional.
The good news is that I have new parts sitting at home ready for me and xilin to have some time to put together my new desktop so in a few weeks I should be able to not only access that file and finish it but no longer be crippled by hardware and software that was new nearly a decade ago.
On a side note, after it became clear that LimaBean was DOA, I hoped that perhaps technologically regressing to the year I graduated from high school might help me better learn patience or to learn to work with and overcome a continual frustration. Instead I’ve learned a different lesson, especially since I’m already a fairly patient person. I’ve learned that multitasking is impossible in these conditions since not only does it slow the processing down, you need to baby-sit the current process.
Unless I’m transferring photos and data to the shared server at work there’s generally only just enough time to divert your attention elsewhere while waiting and then return to the main task without getting anything done on the secondary. It’s slowed everything down such that everything except for basic word processing and basic data entry takes up a significant portion of my time with little to show for it.
There is nothing that I can do about the situation at work, other than take advantage of Trish or Jeff’s computers when they aren’t using them more often as they’ve offered, but I should have started the process of building a new desktop sooner. And through it all, despite how slow Jane is and much I would like to be using another computer, I still have to give props to my old Gateway Solo 9500 for despite its many quirks and frustrating habits and lack of disc space has been a reasonably reliable backup for many years.
Remember the 10-Min Meme?: I really liked this, actually. Not only did I get to draw quick doodles for some friends, I didn’t have the pressure of drawing something I deemed worthy because I limited myself at the very beginning to only 10 minutes for the entire thing. Afterwards I was able to take my time in finishing up each as I had the time or whim. Some of them turned out better than others or took significantly longer but I didn’t feel bad about shorting anybody because I delivered on the original: a sketch done in 10-minutes.
I’ve been working on finishing up the single pencil sketch that remained off and on for the past few months, using it as an excuse to try out my new watercolors and practice using them. The two digital ones of course remain out of reach but I did make some significant progress on one of them before KidneyBean crapped out on me.
I would like to do this one again, though first I plan on finishing the remaining three and taking some time to finish some other things. I think I’d run it exactly the same as well. 10 slots for one simple suggestion of something to sketch in 10-minutes, no more no less, with materials of my choice. And if I feel like finishing up what I started, I’ll go ahead and do so as I have the time or inclination with no promises that I will.
It was a good way to practice drawing things I don’t usually draw, practice with materials I don’t usually use, and end up with a few finished things that I rather like.
Pre-written for LiveJournal, 1 September 2009
Here’s a post that’s been stewing off and on for a while. A few months back, on the same page where I sketched Adolph Alexander Weinman’s “Descending Night,” I started jotting down thoughts which I titled “Thoughts on Productivity/Production.” I don’t think the title is quite right, it’s much less about productivity and more about being creative on a regular basis and several things have changed since I wrote it, aside from having more time to think on the subject. I’ll start by copying the original without comment and with as much as my original formatting as possible and then expand on each as needed.
~*~
Thoughts on Productivity/Production
• Schedule too “up in the air” to set Day goals. Need to be flexible! Scheduling things on certain days has pros: Get in the habit of doing it. Cons: missing a day is discouraging, esp. when work or other responsibilities is cause.
• Need to draw more. Skill kept improving during school because I was doodling/sketching nearly every day. Stagnating now (and losing sketchbook goal) because sketching happens rarely.
• Need to finish things.
o Try coloring while watching shows. -> Playing WoW, other games with some ‘downtime.’ (This requires colored pencil or marker coloring only. Paints = too messy, require immediate, constant attention. Requires pieces ready to color. Traditional materials only, since digital requires KidneyBean ->(However: see Sordid + Daily Show combination.)
• There is a breakdown between promising sketch that should be finished and actual finished product. Current process: sketch, scan, (print, ink, transfer to good paper,) color.
• Consider monthly goals (to take the place of werexchange)
• What constitutes a speed paint? (Remember 10-min meme?) - What happened to that anyway? Of 10 sketches… 7 completed! (good!) 1 is pencil sketch 2 are digital
Maybe… monthly goal of 1 “speed paint” in PhotoShop. Paint whatever, in 30 min.
~*~
Since writing this I have acted on some of these, others have suffered due to changing circumstances, while others are still the same. Starting from the top…
Schedule: My schedule is indeed still very up in the air. There has been a little stability recently in that I have three furlough days per month which must be taken on the first, second, and third Friday of each month. Additionally, Clayton has another job now and works Thursday through Sunday there, leaving me the weekend largely free with trapping typically on Tuesdays and Wednesdays and normal office days Mondays and Thursdays.
Except… right now I’m typing from the barracks at Camp Roberts after working the morning shift at the check station on this fourth day of a ten day hunt for posting later when I have internet access. The last new moon window had me trapping for rodents four days in a row. In a couple of weekends I’ll be demonstrating said trapping for a group of college students. The necessity of being flexible is still valid.
I have observed, however, that I may be able to reach minor weekly goals though daily remains out of reach. I’ve found that I need at least one day a week for domestic chores and skipping that is detrimental to my peace of mind. I can go without doing laundry for two to three weeks but by the middle of the third week I’m out of clean, comfortable socks and both sets of my uniform are generally no longer presentable.
Being able to take a day to do laundry, vacuum my rug so that it’s blue again rather than grey, bathe the beardies, and catch up on things in general is important not only so that things get done but so that I can mark the end of my week, even if it happens to be a Wednesday.
It seems that somehow I should be able to fit art into that, though lately I haven’t even been able to fit in gaming. (I no longer count DDR because the way we play it now makes it a workout. One that I want to fit in to my week at least three times, rather than the current one day or less.)
Need to draw more: I’m doing better on the sketchbook goal these days, though I still have a ways to catch up. I’m about halfway through and it’s September but I think I should be able to just make it if I keep up my current rate and definitely if I find more time to sketch. I had to change several things in the way I was thinking of it, though.
The big one was drilling into my head that I’m trying to complete MY sketchbook goal, not haikujaguar’s. I believe she is trying to produce a completed sketch that can become a painting per page or something in that vein. I’m just trying to fill this sucker by 31 December 2009.
I had to give myself permission to leave sketches undone, to fill a page with notes or lists with random doodles on the side, to leave a page largely blank except for the seed of something that could grow with time and a break, to fill a page with really random crap and nonsense. Essentially I had to give myself permission to do what I’ve done on random scraps of paper and my school notebooks for years and years except in one book dedicated to that purpose.
…But it looks like it will take time until that becomes a habit. I dated one page full of vague figures from posemanics.com as 7 Aug 2009 and since then have filled 8 pages, which isn’t super great, especially since two of them are from today. However, it is far superior from the beginning of the book where I completed 7 pages in the span of time between the beginning of January and the end of April. (I can tell by that silly page of doodles drawn in your apartment, dsch with arrin in the days after we saw Wicked.)
Finishing Things: Here’s where my circumstances changed. You may have noticed my reference to KidneyBean in the original list. Clearly it was written before my desktop died (it’s on the page just before the one with silly doodles mentioned above) and that certainly put a crimp all digital art as well as sharing anything (such as the Horrible Skipping Thing that I must inflict upon share with you all) or doing that Sordid + Daily Show combination I mentioned.
This combination was actually quite successful by the way. I was set up with my tablet and PhotoShop working on polishing up one of the pieces that came from the 10-minute sketch meme with all my tools and windows set up so that I could also have a small window open that streamed the Daily Show and still draw without becoming too distracted by what I was watching. I don’t think this method would work very well with something with a lot of action but its worth trying to repeat.
I’m guessing the principle is the same when coloring with tradmats and watching something but I still haven’t quite gotten around to trying it. Of course, at the moment I don’t have anything colored pencil/marker ready either. I did try sketching while watching TV today but I only really put pencil to paper during the commercials. (There was a Bones marathon. It was great. …And also like the only thing worth watching despite all those channels. The novelty of Dish TV at Camp Roberts has worn off.)
Breakdown: I was hoping that I could cut out several steps in my process between sketch and finished product with the smoother paper in the new sketchbook. I haven’t had a chance to find out because wow… I haven’t scanned ANYTHING from it yet. There’s plenty to scan now, I simply lack the ability to scan.
Which leads me to something that only just occurred to me: would the smoother paper will allow me to create a finished product I’m happy with in the sketchbook without having to transfer it to better paper? Something to experiment with once I get home.
Monthly Goals: The good thing about the werexchange, or at least the idea of it since it only revived for one round, is that it had a deadline. And while I consistently miss my own, self-imposed deadlines I make a serious effort to meet those set by others.
The “speed paint” plan was… It didn’t get a fair shake. I started off in April to do just that: paint whatever, in 30 minutes. I set aside that block of time and started throwing colorful pixels around in PhotoShop and ended up with a good start to some gift art for rantingmule’s birthday which had the added bonus of having a deadline that I did not set and so I made some real progress in coming up with a finished digital painting. And then, of course, my computer died and the file has since been trapped on a hard drive that is functional and safe but not accessible since other critical parts (motherboard, for example) are nonfunctional.
The good news is that I have new parts sitting at home ready for me and xilin to have some time to put together my new desktop so in a few weeks I should be able to not only access that file and finish it but no longer be crippled by hardware and software that was new nearly a decade ago.
On a side note, after it became clear that LimaBean was DOA, I hoped that perhaps technologically regressing to the year I graduated from high school might help me better learn patience or to learn to work with and overcome a continual frustration. Instead I’ve learned a different lesson, especially since I’m already a fairly patient person. I’ve learned that multitasking is impossible in these conditions since not only does it slow the processing down, you need to baby-sit the current process.
Unless I’m transferring photos and data to the shared server at work there’s generally only just enough time to divert your attention elsewhere while waiting and then return to the main task without getting anything done on the secondary. It’s slowed everything down such that everything except for basic word processing and basic data entry takes up a significant portion of my time with little to show for it.
There is nothing that I can do about the situation at work, other than take advantage of Trish or Jeff’s computers when they aren’t using them more often as they’ve offered, but I should have started the process of building a new desktop sooner. And through it all, despite how slow Jane is and much I would like to be using another computer, I still have to give props to my old Gateway Solo 9500 for despite its many quirks and frustrating habits and lack of disc space has been a reasonably reliable backup for many years.
Remember the 10-Min Meme?: I really liked this, actually. Not only did I get to draw quick doodles for some friends, I didn’t have the pressure of drawing something I deemed worthy because I limited myself at the very beginning to only 10 minutes for the entire thing. Afterwards I was able to take my time in finishing up each as I had the time or whim. Some of them turned out better than others or took significantly longer but I didn’t feel bad about shorting anybody because I delivered on the original: a sketch done in 10-minutes.
I’ve been working on finishing up the single pencil sketch that remained off and on for the past few months, using it as an excuse to try out my new watercolors and practice using them. The two digital ones of course remain out of reach but I did make some significant progress on one of them before KidneyBean crapped out on me.
I would like to do this one again, though first I plan on finishing the remaining three and taking some time to finish some other things. I think I’d run it exactly the same as well. 10 slots for one simple suggestion of something to sketch in 10-minutes, no more no less, with materials of my choice. And if I feel like finishing up what I started, I’ll go ahead and do so as I have the time or inclination with no promises that I will.
It was a good way to practice drawing things I don’t usually draw, practice with materials I don’t usually use, and end up with a few finished things that I rather like.