Art Skills Half-Life Day
May. 23rd, 2013 11:14 amToday is a skills half-life day. The specific skill is illustration, more specifically portrait drawing.
I used to be able to draw with a half-decent competence. I've never been serious about expanding the skill the way I have my writing or coding, but it's a skill I think every human being ought to have, it activates portions of the brain that don't get a lot of exercise, and as I get older I become more convinced that exercising the odder corners of my brain is just as important to my long-term mental health as exercising my body is to my physical health.
Monday night, Kouryou-chan and I spent about an hour drawing together. I managed a half-decent picture of a kitten's head, followed by a much rougher outline of a man in armor. As is often the case in exercises like this, I could feel my brain growing around the skills being practiced.
And today, I can likewise feel my brain slowly unlocking its hooks around that skill. This is one of those cases where I know, if I refresh the skill before I go to sleep tonight, I'll have a much higher chance of retaining it; if I don't, I'll be back to the beginning again.
I used to be able to draw with a half-decent competence. I've never been serious about expanding the skill the way I have my writing or coding, but it's a skill I think every human being ought to have, it activates portions of the brain that don't get a lot of exercise, and as I get older I become more convinced that exercising the odder corners of my brain is just as important to my long-term mental health as exercising my body is to my physical health.
Monday night, Kouryou-chan and I spent about an hour drawing together. I managed a half-decent picture of a kitten's head, followed by a much rougher outline of a man in armor. As is often the case in exercises like this, I could feel my brain growing around the skills being practiced.
And today, I can likewise feel my brain slowly unlocking its hooks around that skill. This is one of those cases where I know, if I refresh the skill before I go to sleep tonight, I'll have a much higher chance of retaining it; if I don't, I'll be back to the beginning again.
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