Can You Actually 'Work Harder' at Art?

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I'm usually drawing on Strathmore 400 Series Bristol Paper Smooth or in my Moleskine Sketchbook with some sort of HB lead and Palomino Blackwing pencils.

[mikepelosi]

I think there is a mechanistic way to physically train for art, similar to the way you train for athletics. In fact, I’d be willing to bet that your hand and eye coordination is an athletic process in general, and most of us would do well to conjugate our learning but reserve our max outputs for certain times and projects. However, none of that has to do with effort or trying harder. We simply work to reach our threshold, push past it a little bit, rinse and repeat. Beginners do this rapidly. Experienced artists looking to improve will have to be more mindful since it starts becoming more specific. I’ve always found anything beyond this really just overcomplicates the simplicity of art. And when that happens, you start taking steps backwards just like highly trained but thoroughly burnt out athletes.

[stillhere]

words like arrows hit my psyche right in the heart and made me cry.. again. thanks steven

[datingwally]

Does anyone else giggle like a madman when they listen to these talks? :D

[mikecotton-russell]

doesn't a lot of this over work/ work addiction attitude stem from studios and the entertainment industry? I know for myself I used to listen a lot of interviews and professionals talk about their experience and how they would work their butt of and ask for seconds as they would "love" the grind. This sort of attitude would rub off on me and I'd beat myself up because I'm not able to do the same.

[akkad]

i feel so much better after literally changing my sleeping schedule 1 hour earlier, should've seen that sooner, damn

[SillverBel]

You're spot on about the fact that we don't actually have free will. Our motivation is highly curated by our environments and our natural temperaments and physical state of body and mind (all of which are hard to decode for our own use and purposes).

[UrsulaDorada]

I'm feeling both attacked and enlightened uh
feels weird

[EnginCanUre]

Wow, I really did need this, what a perfect timing, I didn't draw almost anything for a week and I am so stressed out because of it. I always find excuses to do something else, like it's too late or I am tired or it's too early, I'm going to eat something even though I'm not hungry, watching a video, looking at social media, watching movies or series or daydreaming.

Before drawing, I have a whole different mindset, and while I am drawing or I did draw today, my mindset changes into something completely else, I feel so good doing it and for the whole day my mood is just positive vibes, but it's really hard for me to actually take a pen/pencil and f'ing draw.

And well of course Steven's videos are just the perfect mood changers to make me draw and convert my mindset into the positive one.

[sealbatross]

"You're already home" hit way too hard. Thank you for making these :)

[EMY.sr.]

*Just RELAX* when I do this everyone thinks I am lazy :D I am just trying not to burn my brain.
Thank You again for the video.

[stratovolcano]

Your storytelling and humour is… incredible. ❤️

[timkongart]

Its a fascinating thing how artists can self abuse themselves the worst and be caught in a situation that feels like stockholm syndrome to yourself. I know very well that as I essentially did this to myself for almost 9 years with art. It gave me such a long and love and hate relationship with art and what felt like extreme sacrifices to my personal life and wellbeing for what I hoped was a reward to the end.
I didn't get that reward. So I slipped into not doing art as everything I did for those years was to serve a 'purpose' of being a useful asset to somebody and after trying for so many years it didn't amount to anything I just burned out.

It's crazy how it quite easy to fall into this mindset, especially so when there's no guidance whatsoever. When we see artist have 'fun' or do things effortlessly we automatically treat it as 'talent' or better yet they're working 'harder' that we are.
It as at this point I feel the most important thing is to understand what you want. What the actual person who sums up who are right now desire to make in art.

Anyways i've gone a bit of a rant here, thank you Steven for bringing this topic up. Its something that always was on my mind since recently retreading the path of self discovery for art.

[whitewitch]

Uhm Steven... this absolutely just blew my mind. I ate up the whole thing. Jesus. This is all I needed to hear, today! Thank you so much for sharing these thoughts - even if they become abstract and pertain to life itself as well, you're absolutely hitting the CORE of what art and creativity truly is, and how many people approach it in a self-destructive way these days. Including myself. I needed to be reminded of this so much -- because you're right, my heart already knew it. THANK YOU!

[evilsexyhamlet]

" An artist is not paid for his labor but for his vision."
- James Whistler

[krisztinanagy]

That's what I've been wondering about for years. People always told me there's no such thing as art just bursting out of you or you feeling what's the next move is. "You can't study while having fun!" bullcrap. I learn the best if I'm having fun. They like my end result when I have fun drawing and draw how I like to draw but when they eventually ask "how do you do it?" they just crap all over my process and point to other artists like "you should do it like them! That's the right solution!" and I'm like they liked my stuff when they didn't know how I made it. How I make it is essentially like this I decide on what I want to draw for example a vase with flowers and then I relax don't think verbally and let my brain come up with the answers which come mostly in images or sensations. Those images and sensations do use construction and all the other art stuff I've learnt but I also love to figure out how to draw something. Sometimes I can feel taste or smell what I'm drawing. Sometimes I get the sensation of biting into what I'm drawing. Sometimes I hear the sounds the thing I'm drawing would make like scraping metal. But most people say to this that it doesn't exist and you need fundamentals (which I indeed use I just don't make an inner monologue about them and I don't stress about how so and so would do it). It's my drawing I do it how I want to. I'm trying to get out of this "If you don't feel bad while drawing you're not working hard enough, you can't have fun and you must adhere to other people's expectations in how you work." and I've recently came to a similar conclusion as yours. As much as I should be confident enough to value my own opinions on the matter it is helpful to have a pro reinforce them. I see way too much draw yourself to death while you're miserable advice around. I've decided to just cut out art advice videos in general for now I have to focus on my own solutions. The ones I have fun with. This one, I checked out because I suspected it might do with what I'm going through and it would probably be helpful. It was so thank you very much.

[seanclarkeApolea]

When I go to play tennis my coach always forces us to push ourselves past our limits, now that I’m better learned in tennis I’ve realized if you want to have longevity you need to increase the amount of tennis you enjoy. A major thing in tennis is effortless power which Ironically comes from being more relaxed and flexible. I think that my best drawings came from a time when I was just in flow, working on my time, in a relaxed and flexible manner.

[kuudere]

Canibus : "Since it became a lucrative profession, there's a misconception that a movement in any direction is progression."

[gabudaichamuda]

This hit me pretty hard a few days ago: Outside factors can very easily influence blockages to the relaxed state needed to create.

That's why I am actively working to find a job that will give me the necessary breathing room financially, and time-wise to fully chase and indulge my creative pursuits.

[TOBIA_ilustra]

I don't know if the idia of "work harder" is actually usefull. I think about working smarter, or better. You can allways put more hours, more time, but that's not working harder, just working more. As well, you can put more atention, more intention on not distracting yourself. That's working more focused, not harder. Working "hard" is a really loose concept. You could run pumping more force into each step, that wouldn't be running harder, but faster.

If you evaluate your effort on how much time you can run, it doesn't matter the speed but the resistance. So i think that if you want to work harder, you first need to clarify what "harder" means. If harder means that you learn faster you could allways search for strategies to maximize the learning, if it means producing more in less time, on can search for ways to doit.
so..can someone make art "harder"?
I think yes, but first clarify what harder is, then you can probably find ways to accomplish what you seek.

[itsiwhatitsi]

Artistic process is 80% a mystery. Cool video, very interesting