In the book Mastery by George Leonard, plateaus are frequent and should be welcomed. I’m finding it hard to do so at the moment.
I’m thinking that I may have made a mistake when I decided to focus on long term paintings for a while and do nothing else. Of course my long term figure painting are looking good, I’m working on them daily, so that is a no brainer. But everything else is beginning to slide. I’m starting to see what a difficult juggling act it is to keep all skills at a high level.
I’ll continue with the long term figure paintings but I need to work in other aspects of art, especially charcoal drawings. My performance today at life drawing was dismal. I didn’t get much completed because I redrew the figure several times to get it right. Only several months ago I could draw the entire figure from head to toe with great accuracy in 20 minutes without shading. Now I struggle to get half the figure in accurately in 2 hours.
So, I work, I learn. Time to start doing other things throughout the week or month. I’ll add in the charcoal drawing, and I need to get a still life going as well. Plus I should try and do a landscape every now and then. Maybe a portrait also…
It may take me a bit to figure out a good schedule, but when I do I’m sure it can push me past this plateau.
While I may not understand all aspects of art and going from one subject matter to another as a visual artist, I get that way in terms of motivation between several projects. I sometimes traverse back and forth between articles, blog posts, different ideas for books, and creative projects. Sometimes to help focus and calm myself (thinking of all my ideas and projects I need/want to do is really overwhelming sometimes), I ask myself “What do I want to accomplish with this?” For instance, if I published a Fitness Program Guide, would that help reach more people to introduce them to the concept of “Conservation Fitness”? What are stepping stones I can take to get better at writing? What helps drive the motivation to finish a project?
Your focus on the figure is what drives you to continue, but while I know you want to stay proficient in other subject matter, maybe ask yourself what you want to accomplish in an effort to help drive your focus toward what will help you achieve your goal.
That is the million dollar question… I’ve been thinking about it for a while.