I learned a couple years ago that New Year’s resolutions don’t work for me. I have a tendency to “think big.” While thinking big and having extraordinary ideas is very motivating in the *long term* (as in unending measures of time, constantly hypothesizing what could be and working towards it,) thinking big is not necessarily something you want to plan your life around.
What works for me instead is simply taking New Year’s as an opportunity to subtly shift some behavior or process into new territory. Like last year, I took my website – which I’d had for a while – and redid the whole thing. Sadly all that worked ended up trashed when I redid it this summer, but sometimes that’s how it goes! This year I grasped three opportunities for some positive change and gave myself the January 2nd deadline on which to begin them (because we all know the 1st is a holiday.)
This Christmas I got two fantastic books as gifts, one from my mother – a massive book of all the paintings in the Louvre – and another as a gift to myself – a reprint of Andrew Loomis’ fabulous Figure Drawing for All It’s Worth. When I saw the Loomis book on Amazon I made happy little noises and jumped around a little. When I actually held it in my hands I could have cried. I had been gradually printing up the PDF in low-quality grayscale (and doing my Structure of Man drawings on the back,) so to page through every illustration and essay was just a beautiful thing.
The Louvre book spent a couple hours in my lap on Christmas morning. I only wish the pictures were bigger. But there are so many, and each one so inspiring.
I finished up my second Structure of Man course before the holidays, so these books ushered in the chance to do something new. I’ve been meaning to do some master copies for a while, so the book of Louvre paintings is going to supply some masters’ work for me. I’m going to split my daily practice time between copying masterworks (in pencil, to start) and spending time reading and drawing along with Mister Loomis. Both will test and develop my figure drawing skill as it stands, and hopefully guide me further in both technique and polishing my own style.
The third thing is the biggest change and the most intimidating. The night before New Year’s Eve someone on Facebook mentioned having ordered a GeekDesk adjustable-height desk, and it got me to thinking about it myself again. As anyone with a job that ties them to a desk or computer can relate, it can get pretty frustrating (not to mention painful!) being tied to a chair all day. Not that long ago, too, that study came out that said even if you exercise daily, if you’re sitting for more than 4 hours a day or so you’re still screwed. This didn’t come as good news to me. I’ve been trying desperately to stay in decent shape for years now, and reading that, and knowing how long I have to be seated at a desk in order to get a drawing or painting done, I thought I was pretty much DOOMED.
But the there’s the idea of the standing desk. I don’t have the funds for something new, but I did recall that my old drawing table (a gift from my dad on my 16h birthday, long ago) could be fixed at that height. So I spent New Year’s Eve moving furniture around. I took out my current computer desk and went from this:
To this:
I felt very lucky I was actually able to arrange everything in new places (even found an old shelf for my beer-bottle collection!) and as usual tried to make sense of the mangle of wires that inevitably come to inhabit the backsides of desks. (The wires are covered with the paper screen to prevent my cat from nomming them as if they were a delicious buffet.) I made the mat to stand on from some laminate-flooring underlayment I’d saved, but I hope to get a proper anti-fatigue mat soon. The keyboard and tablet have to be moved to use one or the other, but it’s really not a big deal to switch their places.
The first night I had it together I STOOD and played Star Wars: The Old Republic for about three hours. Three hours during which I moved around, danced a little, stood on my tip-toes, and so forth – three hours I would have spent sitting in a chair. It’s one thing to be tied to a chair for work, but quite another when your main hobby also ties you to a chair. I haven’t added up all the hours sitting I’ll be trading in for standing, but it has gotta be… quite a lot.
Yes, my feet got sore. Yes, my legs were sore when I got up the next day. But hey, that shows it’s WORKING.
The even bigger benefit is that I prefer to draw and paint standing up. I love to work at an easel, and always imagined having a big Cintiq on some kind of wall-mount that would replicate that. Of course I probably won’t be getting a wall-mounted Cintiq any time soon, but this will definitely be a step towards that. Drawing standing up, it’s easier to step back and see work from another viewpoint (I always like to step back about four or five feet and tilt my head upside-down) and it’s also easier to draw from the shoulder for more expression and looser block-ins. I haven’t tried drawing or painting at the desk yet, but I’ve got something lined up to start tomorrow and I’m very curious how it will work out.
Despite the sore feet.
So those are my unresolved plans for 2012. I have no idea where they will take me. If I lose 5 lbs. standing at the desk I will be happy. If my art gets closer to where I want it with Loomis and some master-copies, I’ll be even happier. The important thing is simply moving forward, a little better than before.
Many wishes for happy new years, little changes, and small triumphs for everyone out there.