06-01-2013, 09:07 PM
I too am very bad at following strict timetables and set hours/exercises. I tried all sorts of daily plans, both for university work as well as for art and it gets extremely boring for me just after two days. I'm a hard worker, but I don't function well that way. I can't focus on more than one thing at a time. I can't do gestures in the morning, perspective after lunch and portfolio work until bed. I can only do one thing at any given day, so that's what I do now. I guess I'm working the hardest when I'm obsessed with something because I really want to learn it and not when my timetable says I must learn it.
I try to get as early as possible (7:30-8:00) and then just work on that one thing for 12 hours with rest for lunch, dinner and some exercise. That's how I spend most of my days and it works for me. I usually do that for 3-4 days and then change the subject matter. So that means I'll do anatomy for 3-4 days, 12 hours a day, then I will only do environments then something other. I also try to make at least one portfolio painting a week so my studies are rarely stand alone. Most of the time they are directly related to that painting so I really don't do values studies only or color studies. I do them on my current WIP. This week I decided to spend more time on environments so I won't touch anatomy at all. Only trees, rocks, waterfalls and so on. And to see if I really learned how to handle them I'm doing a very detailed painting of a forest featuring all that.
This is also the reason why I don't update my sketchbook that often. I paint and draw all the time, but I don't really have pages of studies, because 90% of my studies are made on the canvas of the painting I'm currently doing. This is something that probably won't work for the majority of you guys, but it works for me. The only stand alone studies I do are anatomy and perspective, because they are a lot more technical and you can't learn anatomy by painting just one figure.
So in a sense I don't really manage my time. I just pick something and work on it until it's the best I can do.
I try to get as early as possible (7:30-8:00) and then just work on that one thing for 12 hours with rest for lunch, dinner and some exercise. That's how I spend most of my days and it works for me. I usually do that for 3-4 days and then change the subject matter. So that means I'll do anatomy for 3-4 days, 12 hours a day, then I will only do environments then something other. I also try to make at least one portfolio painting a week so my studies are rarely stand alone. Most of the time they are directly related to that painting so I really don't do values studies only or color studies. I do them on my current WIP. This week I decided to spend more time on environments so I won't touch anatomy at all. Only trees, rocks, waterfalls and so on. And to see if I really learned how to handle them I'm doing a very detailed painting of a forest featuring all that.
This is also the reason why I don't update my sketchbook that often. I paint and draw all the time, but I don't really have pages of studies, because 90% of my studies are made on the canvas of the painting I'm currently doing. This is something that probably won't work for the majority of you guys, but it works for me. The only stand alone studies I do are anatomy and perspective, because they are a lot more technical and you can't learn anatomy by painting just one figure.
So in a sense I don't really manage my time. I just pick something and work on it until it's the best I can do.