Term 10, Brainstorm School Spring ’23, Week 3
For full context, see the description of my Art Home School Curriculum.
Retrospective
I found a great video on motivation. You can watch it here. He defines motivation as “the ability to hold a thought for an extended period of time.” A lack of motivation is when other intrusive (usually negative) thoughts take the place of the motivating thought you’re trying to hold. For example, over the holidays when I lost my motivation to draw, my mind was filled with negativity about that loss of motivation. “Will I ever want to draw again? Will I drop this hobby like I have everything else in my life? How can I ever find a fulfilling career if everything eventually becomes boring to me?” And so on. When holding one thought for an extended period of time, there is no room for these unmotivating thoughts to enter. The way I’ve been putting this idea into practice is by focusing on a mantra during my morning walks. Rather than listening to podcasts, I repeat the following phrases.
- I want to get really good at art and see how far I can take it.
- Challenge is fun.
- Hard work is the reward.
- Failure is an opportunity for growth.
- I’m on the path of mastery.
I repeat this over and over, slowly and with purpose, for 10 minutes as I walk around the block. It gets me focused on what I want and puts me in the mood to start working when I get back from the walk.
Log
Work
ENT 1
Keyframes for my Robin Hood: Sherwood City project.
I refined three keyframes from last week. The first shows how stones are transported around the treetops in mine cars. Some stones are turned to mortar (right), and some are carved into building blocks for castles (center). Cranes then hoist the carts back to upper areas where they can be refilled. The second shows trollies that travel along ropes to transport logs and people between treetops. A winch can then coil a rope attached to a trolly to return it to its starting position. The third shows more of the treetop castle construction and a standoff on a bridge. These were really difficult and took a long time. I found that if I started scribbling instead of trying to get perfect perspective everywhere I started to get better results.
WB 2
The teacher was sick and cancelled class this week. I used the extra time on the ENT 1 homework
WB: SDVGD
3D blockout thumbnails for my Dark Souls in Tibet project.
I like the mood and atmosphere of these, although creating mood wasn’t the goal of the assignment. The skies are too dark in all of them. The “dark to light foreground to background” rule is a simple concept to understand, but somehow I still messed it up. I’ve chosen number 2 to take to a finish. Next week were supposed to push it as far as we can with 3D.
