Tag: studying

The Lost Artist – Chapter 1 – Where do I start?

Paper? Check. Pencil? Check. Eraser? Check. Drawing table? Check. Now, what do I do? Well, you draw.

Sounds simple enough, but it’s easy to put in action. The greatest challenge beginner artists face as they embark on their creative journey, be it as a hobby or as a long-term professional goal, is finding an answer to the big fat question staring back at them from a blank sheet of paper,

WHERE THE HECK DO I START?

The worst part about this question is in trying to find an answer you can easily fall into a rabbit hole of opinions, comments, and suggestions from various professionals in the field. All that information, coming from so many different directions, can leave one confused and stressed. I’ve been there and it took me nearly two years to get out of that cycle and find my own path toward my creative goals.

To start, the most common advice you get to hear is, to begin with the fundamentals. This covers everything from learning how to draw with lines, shapes, forms, adding value and texture, alongside a slew of other things like perspective, figure drawing, etc. While this approach works REALLY well for a lot of people, it isn’t necessarily the ONLY recipe for success.

When I started, I took this advice wholeheartedly and went hardcore on learning all the fundamentals. I sat there deconstructing my subjects into forms, practicing my lines, shading, and a lot more. But, after a while, the whole process felt tedious and, to be honest, boring.

I reached out to the community. I read about what other artists had done, and in most cases, the answer I got back was to keep pushing on. Practice makes perfect and that is true. Every artist and mentor I reached out to had the right idea but there was something more to their advice that flew completely under my radar.

After nearly a year of inconsistent progress, I took a step back to get some perspective. I gradually recognized that just as much as art is a subjective medium, so too is the process or path that one takes toward becoming an artist. There is truly no RIGHT way that works for all.

This doesn’t mean practice doesn’t make perfect or that learning the fundamentals doesn’t help. Rather, how one goes about learning the fundamentals or gearing practice sessions to their needs and interests can make an enormous difference in maintaining enthusiasm and commitment to their goals as an artist.

My initial approach had focused too hard on perfection and too fast on success and so much so that I never really got anywhere with it. I purchased a good chunk of reference books, looked up a lot of online resources and courses, practiced the fundamentals, jumping from one lesson to another, and only ended up being overwhelmed.

Taking a step back helped me realize there was nothing wrong in starting with what I liked to draw and slowly building out from there. In due course, I recognized the skills I needed to tackle different aspects of my projects and artwork while gauging it against the work of other established masters in the field.

Adopting what I considered a “project-oriented” approach, I redefined my artistic lessons based on my personal goals: to take the scripts and stories I write and bring them to life through art. I wanted to enhance my writing through art. And using that art, I wished to work toward a possible long-term goal as an animation director. [I have backups too in the form of a comic book artist]. I finally had a direction.

Having identified my destination, I was able to pinpoint the relevant skills I required to start my journey. The fundamentals were certainly important, but more so than that, was also the need to draw consistently. Revisiting the references I had scoured through earlier, I slowly put together a solo artist program (currently in progress and under continual development) that not only met my specific interests (from the types of drawing media I gravitated to, the styles, etc.) but also enabled me to learn my fundamentals through projects of my own liking.

While this approach is highly subjective to my personal goals, they gather inspiration from other artists in the field whose courses I have followed and who provide a great bunch of online resources that all beginner artists can follow. Thus far, I can say that I have found great success and motivation to keep up with my goals.

So, from this noob artist here to my awesome readers out there, if you are much like me (or otherwise) and prefer a project-oriented approach that also enables you to tackle and learn the fundamental skills necessary, my advice would be to start by identifying your personal goals for your art career.

Knowing a specific endpoint, no matter how far down the timeline, that you are aiming for can really help get you started in identifying the skills you need. This helps build focus and also avoid stretching yourself too thin.

Following this, use projects or subject areas that interest you as a platform to build your fundamentals in an iterative but dynamic learning process. For example, if you love drawing animals and love pen-and-ink as a medium, there is nothing wrong in structuring your studies to focus within that medium and build out from there.

You can begin by learning how to deconstruct animals into basic forms and build out the animal’s physical structure using lines. As pen-and-ink is a “linear” medium, you then get to add to the details using various kinds of line strokes. Through each step, you learn something fundamental and you get a drawing done.

If it wasn’t obvious, I love drawing animals too, and here is one of a lioness I happily whipped up using Clip Studio Paint.

Most importantly, recognize that it is completely OK if you are not satisfied with your end product. It is OK to fail. Just don’t dwell on it. Continue onward to another subject and work on what you missed the last time around. In what is a constructive and iterative process, you get to hone your skills regularly while also enjoying the process.

Using this approach protected me from getting overwhelmed by the resources out there and learning effectively in a piece-wise fashion. An apple a day keeps the doctor away. Similarly, learning one small facet a day, be it as simple as looking at subjects and deconstructing them into primitive forms, IS progress and can really keep your doubts away. Trust in the process! After all, you made it out of your own willingness to improve.

On that note, I will see you next in Chapter 2, where I share my experience of the first two months of my solo artist program, the courses I have undertaken, and some awesome resources that all beginner artists must indulge in.

And, as always, don’t forget to follow my artwork at LockeInArt on Instagram!

The Final Lap

My doctoral studies commenced in Fall 2017. I wouldn’t have predicted then that the last 1.5 years of my PhD would involve a global pandemic. I have spent much of 2020 plus the last few months working from home, and contrary to the popular vote, time seems to have flown by.

I’m now on the final lap of my doctoral studies. Productivity and efficiency have been my daily mantra since my last post. It wasn’t easy, but after two weeks of 12 hour work cycles supplemented by some unhealthy snacks, energy drinks, and some encouraging music for company, I finished compiling my thesis. Thesis fatigue would soon set in afterward, and I would spend an additional week allowing my fried brain cells to recalibrate.

The break gave me much needed time to relax, get my sleep cycle back in line, and get back to normalcy. The finish line beckons with my doctoral defense looming in the near future but with my thesis writing complete, I can now have a balanced diet of studying while gradually ramping up my transition toward a post-doctoral career in writing and art.

That being said, I can now catch up on my initial slew of posts that I had intended prior to my study frenzy. There is much to be done and I intend to keep up with some nice stories I had planned to share with all of you alongside some new science to entertain on The Procrastinating Scientist, and artwork to post on my Instagram feed.

See you all again very soon!

The Final Exam

Exams are an annual/semi-annual ritual most students have to experience at some point during school or university. I myself had to write one last week. While I came out mostly unscathed, this particular occasion was all the more memorable given that it was truly the final curtain for my academic career as far as written exams are concerned; this final exam, was in fact, the FINAL exam of my academic life.

While my 20-year-old counterpart would have relished and wildly celebrated such a reality, I came out of the exam hall feeling quite pensive about the whole affair. It felt like the end of a long and occasionally tortuous journey that had molded my personal perspectives and opinions about written exams, and the present-day state of education.

Back in high-school, I had considered written exams as a means to test my skills and challenge my wits. By the time I had finished undergraduate studies, my viewpoint changed drastically, with written exams no longer being my cup of tea. I attributed this to the rapid environment that is university studies where exams just became another thing on that long checklist of things to do. Accompanied by tight and narrow margins of assignments and course project deadlines, written exams and studying evolved into a race against time, a means to a letter, than an actual endeavor for knowledge. I would finish my undergraduate studies quite frustrated with how things had turned about.

Ironically enough, those very frustrations set the ground for positive aspirations in the future. A few years after my BSc. degree, I would obtain an MSc. degree, following which I would begin my doctoral studies. Written exams still remained a part of my academic life but something changed. It took me a while to figure it out, but in the end, it was quite simple. I came to the realization that written exams are full of shit.

It became quite evident that my exam writing skills didn’t correlate nor were they directly transferable to improving and supplementing my academic experience or my aptitude for research. In my case, I stumbled upon this solution in the most straightforward manner possible: working as a research assistant for one year and proving to myself that I was actually “worthy” of my academic aspirations. Yet, there should have been no reason for me to be pressured into proving this to myself.

While written exams are popularly utilized as a means to weed out the student population in a hierarchical system of academic merit, it is not by any means the most efficient. On the other hand, it has served its purpose as the great illusion that often daunts a student’s psyche with regards to being an indirect and ineffective statement on their potential, and future success.

Multiple cases in point were my encounters with various students and peers who would find average turnovers in exams, and yet remain gifted personalities with great intellects and potential. It wasn’t rare to see the same batch of students also diverge from their original academic aspirations thanks to the lack of representation that written exams (and consequently, their grades) provided for their resume.

The sheer stress and pressure of exams translated to my transcript which to this date remains a beautiful collage of letters traversing the ABCDF scheme of the grading alphabet. Those same factors also translated to an inferiority complex of sorts, culminating in the completion of my undergraduate degree, when I felt that I was not good enough for my field of choice, and that I didn’t have the potential to seek and find success at greater heights.

It took me several years to overcome this complex. It helped to recognize written exams were not the absolute judgment of one’s potential as the education system so often makes it seem. I had to admit to myself that neither my skills or potential were absolutely defined by a piece of paper that I had to complete in a closed-room environment under set rules.  This pushed me to work harder, not at writing exams or getting perfect grades, but at learning to enjoy my own pursuit of knowledge including its ups and downs.

Leaving the exam hall last week, I was glad that I had finished writing my final “final.” I could now look forward to fully and freely engaging my curiosity for knowledge, in whatever form that may be. I’m thankful to have come so far. My success in overcoming my failures in such a systematic hierarchy could largely be attributed to supportive supervisors, professors, friends, and most of all, my loving family. The trials and tribulations I faced in what had once seemed a downhill adventure in self-confidence and motivation did enact a toll upon my university studies, and yet, those very same experiences had served to strengthen me.

At the end of the day, my story may not be another’s. As such, I find it necessary in the current educational climate to find an alternative to written exams (at least in the context of university studies) in an effort to better represent and evaluate a student’s skills and knowledge. In my humble opinion, I would prefer to take the classical approach of the platonic academy where the emphasis towards knowledge and one’s academic mettle were proven through oral arguments and jousts that served to strengthen one’s ability to communicate and defend his opinions, as well as learn from that of others in what could be a collectively reinforcing experience.

I have had the opportunity to be involved in few such courses during my time at university, and have also found them to be the most rewarding. How to mold such an idea into a central gear in the current education system is a whole other problem in itself, and not one that I intend to discuss at this stage (though I do intend to come back to it soon enough).

Having said this, for now, I’m going to sit back, drink a cup of tea, enjoy the view (free of exams and assignments, but mostly a busy week catching up on research), and,

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RELAX!

The Prince, A Reflection Of Our World

Hi everyone, it’s been a while!

My absence over the last month has coincided with my directing a war upon many fronts, mostly revolving around my studies and research at the university. The slew of paper work resting by the side of my computer monitor serves as evidence of the ragged battlefield that has become my home over the last few months.

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Studying…it’s a hard fought battle between Expectations…

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and Reality…

But, with the semester coming to an end, I’ve had several windows of opportunity to kind of sit back and take a break from these daily battles. In setting the stage for the statesmanship of the enduring war that has been my PhD degree so far, I found an interesting perspective and a read worth the time in Niccolo Machiavelli’s The Prince.

Setting aside the  intricacies of 16th century Italian politics that often made me reference Wikipedia (since my purchase of a discounted edition of the book came without supplementary notes), Machiavelli’s realpolitik treatise was quite the enjoyable read.

Unlike the idealism portrayed in Plato’s Republic, Machiavelli’s distinctly non-idealistic guide to the nature of statecraft is obvious within the first few pages of reading. The amoral pragmatism expressed in his perspectives on how a prince should establish and maintain his power make it all the more obvious as to why the author’s name is considered synonymous to the devil, and an adjective for devilish cunning.

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“You’re the devil in disguise…” – pretty much what all religious institutions had to say about Old Nick.

Despite the crude and downright insipid methods that Machiavelli purports for use in the struggle for power, I couldn’t help but be drawn into his work, especially when considering the legacy it has left behind in world history and its persistent influence in the prevailing political climate.

Across the world, politicians continue breaking their promises or rather continue making empty promises; the meaning of politics has become distorted amidst what is a solicitation of power, followed by corruption, and atrocities of various sorts of nature. While it may seem that the democracies of the world have not advertised their affinity to Machiavelli’s teachings, elements of his work are prevalent in the administrative institutions of several nations around the world, and by their many leaders who have taken note of his recommendation to appear benevolent, moral and religious.

“It is necessary for a prince wishing to hold his own to know how to do wrong, and to make use of it or not according to necessity…” (ch XV)

“A prince ought to take care that he never lets anything slip from his lips that is not replete with the above-named five qualities, that he may appear to him who sees and hears him altogether merciful, faithful, humane, upright, and religious. There is nothing more necessary to appear to have than this last quality…” (ch XVIII)

Machiavelli’s teachings are inherently a reflection of the state of the world, and therein lies the power of its influence. No matter the millenia that may come to pass, the emphasis of Machiavelli’s teachings largely depend on the basic tenets of human nature, especially when confronted by the opportunity for power. In that front, it is not difficult to observe the diverse constructs of power integral to various institutions that serve as the foundations of modern-day society, from education to government.

Nevertheless, Machiavelli’s obtuse perspectives on the employment of power can also serve as a case study for the positive outcomes that could be drawn from the knowledge of its opposite. A black and white perspective on the myriad complexities that dictate the ritualistic facets of human life is far too extreme, and while the idealism most often romanticized by philosophers and religious stalwarts may be a far-cry from reality, Machiavelli’s The Prince by describing one side of the extreme, leaves much for argument on the establishment of a grey middle ground of sorts.

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The Tao of “The Prince” kind of borders between these two extremes.

In that vein, I suggest The Prince for anyone willing to engage and wrack their mind in a work that can essentially be described as a game of chess about human ethics and the corrupting potential of power.

As for myself, having completed my fair share of reading for the semester, I look forward to getting started on the next set of writing projects that have been stewing in the back of my mind for quite a while. As such, I hope to see you all again very soon in my next post where I will provide another short discussion of what writing means to me, both as a blogger and an aspiring author, and what exactly makes my imagination click!

Red Hot Chili Peppers, and all about being a PhD student

It has been a vivacious start to 2018, and I have been immersed in my studies over the last few weeks, teeing up for another set of courses this winter semester while putting the last touches on a research paper I intend to publish very soon.

Given my absence for so long, I was quite torn about what to post on my return but it didn’t take me long to realize that the answer sat in plain view. So today, I intend to provide all of you a brief glimpse of my daily life, and exactly what keeps me so busy. Let’s dig in.

We begin with the usual wake up call at 7 a.m in the morning, a goal which in the immediate outset of things provides for varying rates of success depending on the season. With winter, it is an issue of hustle, when the purpose of an alarm is lost over several snooze snippets, resulting in a hustle to get to classes on time. With summer, it is an issue of hassle, when the purpose of an alarm is moot, thanks to my bed bathing in sunlight in the early hours of 5 a.m. in the morning. Welcome to Edmonton!

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Much like the amusing contrast of my forgetful friend Bucky Barnes’ season oriented fashion and epithet, the ritual of morning alarms in my life is largely hyperbolic in nature. 

Now, assuming things do go as planned, I begin my day at the university around 9 a.m. in the morning, jogging along to my courses or engaging in research otherwise, with a finely conditioned but old package of a portable workspace aka my Lenovo G505s laptop. Ideally, I finish at 5 p.m. returning home to proceed with dinner, going to the gym, and engaging in my hobbies (writing, art, music) before heading to bed by around midnight.

Now, with that being said, we all know the obvious outcome: when it comes to life, things never go as planned…

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I often relate my academic life to the act of cooking; I enjoy both equally. While I do love my Indian spices, I have no problem flirting with various cuisines from around the world. In the end, cooking is often about finding a delicate balance, and most importantly, maintaining it.

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Unless I’m asking to be caught at the end of a Gordon Ramsay rant. 

It is the same with my studies. Not one to be attached to a single subject of interest, I’m a fan of interdisciplinary science; a notion that parallels my current research on “hot electrons,” but more about that another time. Ultimately though, it is all about discipline, organization, and a strong ability to multi-task.

Thankfully, I do not lack in any of these categories but that doesn’t take away the usual stumbling blocks that appear every now and then. In that vein, with my PhD, it is all about juggling my degree requirements while simultaneously building towards my goals. This largely revolves around  amassing a wealth of scientific publications, advancing my resume, cooking up original research, and last but not least, having fun while avoiding stress as much as possible. All in all, it is a business modeled around a philosophy of accretion. If you have the right balance, you’ve pretty much hit jackpot. Of course, this is not what happens in most cases, and so while I’m strung up like Anakin Skywalker dealing with an annoying Jedi Council,

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two good friends of mine provide some much needed reminders and send me on my way,

Thus, I survive by running a strict diet of activities removed from my academic pursuits, and by this I mean indulging avidly in my long-term pursuit of becoming a writer/mangaka, not to mention catching up on all the reading and fun one tends to miss while at university.

Where does this cycle end? Truth is, in my case, it probably never will, and with time I’ve grown to enjoy it more than anything else. While the journey has its fair share of ups and down, at the end of the day, when I take a step back and think about it, my mind finds rest within the reality that it is no different from cooking a new recipe and making sure to have a healthy balance of spices (especially in the case of adding chilies, where one should only rub their eyes after having washed their hands…)

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It took over an hour of suppressed pain before my eyes cleared up. 

Keeping with that attitude, I hope to add to my list of goals, a steady accretion of weekly blog posts. Winter break oversaw a rapid increase in viewer traffic on my blog,

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leaving me invigorated with new strategies and topics to engage all of you, my wonderful readers in what I hope will be a wonderful 2018! So, until next week, toodles!