Let’s say that you want to get better at drawing. How much should you practice?
This is an excellent question, and not just because I wrote it myself. All right, maybe a little bit because I wrote it myself, but mainly it’s because sooner or later, every aspiring artists asks this question. Let’s break this down into two parts: first, how much time should I practice; and second, how often should I practice?
The answers are counterintuitive: Take it slow; take it easy. Don’t work at it so hard that it takes the fun out of drawing. Fun is an essential element in cartoons and manga. If it stops being fun, or if you no longer get the satisfaction that you used to get from drawing, then you’ve turned it into a chore. And there’s another important aspect to this: By leaving some part of your practice session unfinished, you’ll look forward to resuming. And taking a break from a drawing, even a brief one, almost always adds perspective to the creative process.
If you find yourself especially motivated one day, and inspiration is just flowing all over the place, then don’t force yourself to quit early! Ride the horse where it’s galloping. (My, but we’re having a lot of animal metaphors today….)
Specifically, how much time should you devote to practicing? The answer is: Enough so that you feel that you’re making progress. But it doesn’t have to be fast progress – and here’s the weird part – you don’t even have to be improving to show progress.
“Dear God!” you utter, totally bewildered, “Is there no end to your cryptic vagaries??”
Well, I’m not quite sure what “cryptic” and “vagaries” mean, but since you asked, I’ll try to wing it. You see, when you’re learning a new technique, you’re breaking old habits. You’re going out of your comfort zone. And that means the drawing may, at first, look worse. This is where some people get discouraged and quit. The ones who stick with it, through the troughs, often end up with far better skills than they ever imagined.
So the takeaway for today is just this:
“Two steps forward and one step back makes for steady progress.”