When I was in India living close to Tibetan monks and lamas, I was often surprised at the apparently easy-going, laid-back way in which many of them seemed to live their practice. They often responded to my intensity and fervor with the expression kale kalepe TOnang (literally “please go slowly”). Essentially, what they were saying was take it easy, go slowly, and you get there. They seemed highly amused by the attitude I had towards my practice, as though they could not understand why I was so driven. They did not have the underlying emotional disposition in their psyches that said they were not good enough. This does not mean they did not practice and work hard. It meant that they let things be and did not have the neurotic intensity of striving many of us suffer from in the West.
“Getting mad at yourself for slipping back into old habits is like getting mad at yourself for shivering when it’s cold. It’s just what we’re wired to do. It’s not a failing.
New habits are new because we don’t have a lot of practice YET. We are not good at them YET.”
So, don’t beat yourself up over it. You’ll get better. It just takes time.
being a self-taught artist with no formal training is having done art seriously since you were a young teenager and only finding out that you’re supposed to do warm up sketches every time you’re about to work on serious art when you’re fuckin twenty-five
someone: oh yeah, do this exercise during your warm ups! it’ll help
me: my what
What’s up I have an actual college degree in art and I was never ONCE taught to do warm ups.
when i was in undergrad, it was kind of mentioned in and offhand way that we should do warmups, but we were never shown what that meant. And, y’know, we were young so it didn’t matter so much.
Being older now and having an art job it’s…kind of essential.
So: a quick primer for those of you who are like ‘ok but how do i actually go about doing this warmup thing.’
1) you may be tempted to do ‘a warmup drawing’ which is just a drawing that will take longer than it needed to and probably be frustrating and kind of bad because you didn’t warm up first. It’s tempting but always a trick your brain is playing on you! Do not trust!
2) warmups will vary based on what feels good to you/what task you’re about to do/what motor skills you want to practice. That being said, some good standbys:
a) circles. Just a whole page of circles on whatever drawing surface you’re going to be using, whether that’s your tablet or your sketchbook or a drawing pad on an easel. For these circles you should make sure that you’re drawing from your shoulder and not your wrist. In fact, you want to be drawing from your shoulder rather than your wrist most of the time! forever! your wrist is delicate please preserve it!
In order to ensure that you’re drawing from your shoulder, when you’re holding your pencil or whatever drawing tool you’re using, the only part of your hand that should be touching the drawing surface is part of the last two fingers–some people prefer the finger tips, but I tend to favor the first knuckles. Either way, the fingers should really be ghosting over the surface, providing guidance rather than support.
I usually start with big circles and then go to smaller circles and lines of ellipses, and then try to fit circles and ellipses inside other shapes i’ve already drawn as a precision exercise, but i don’t do that unless i’m feeling loose
b) spirals! i don’t always do spirals, but if i’m stiff and the circles just aren’t cutting it, spirals are a good fall back. I start from the center and work outward, going both clockwise and counterclockwise until i feel comfortable with the whole range of motion. Some people really care about getting perfect spirals but for me it’s all about making sure i’m comfortable with how i’m moving so who really even cares about how the spirals look. Not me!
c) lines! straight lines! in parallel! i do a mix of vertical, horizontal, and diagonal. These are often more from the elbow than the shoulder, especially if I’m working on a smaller surface. For this exercise, I recommend holding the drawing tool perpendicular with the surface
d) connect the dots. This is a precision and accuracy exercise and takes two forms. The first is to draw two dots and then draw a straight line between them. The second is to draw three dots and draw the curve that connects them. This sounds a lot simpler than it is in practice. Take time to ghost over the line you plan to draw before actually committing to your line. (I don’t always remember where I picked up my warm up exercises, but I’m pretty sure I got this one from Scott Robertson. His how to draw and how to render books are very technical but also accessible and worth checking out)
e) cubes, spheres, cones, and cylinders. These help get your brain into a more volumetric space. I draw multiples of each, rotating the forms around, and I’ll often take the time to do some rough shading on at least a few of them
f) spidermans! This one is really good if you’re going to be storyboarding or working on dynamic poses. Just fill a page full of spidermans doing all sorts of acrobatics.
g) beans. I don’t do beans too much anymore, but I know a lot of people like it so I’m mentioning it here. Fill an area with different size bean shapes without lifting your pencil off the paper.
h) short medium and long line repetition. draw a short, medium, and long line on your page, and then draw directly on top of them 8 to 12 times, doing your best to exactly trace what you’ve already drawing. Repeat with a wavy line. I’m bad at this one, which means I probably need to do it more.
And there are lots more options too! Hit up youtube to see what other people recommend, put together your own go-to list, mix it up when you’re getting bored, etc.
This is a long list, I know, but I usually don’t take more than 10 to 15 minutes to warm up, and I can warm up one handed while I’m drinking coffee, so, multitasking hurrah.
Sometimes I’ll advance to a precision warmup and find that I haven’t loosened up enough yet; it’s totally ok to go back to an earlier exercise! Also, all of this has the added benefit of kind of ritualistically getting you into the drawing mode so even if I’m not feeling it before I start, by the time I’ve gotten to the end I’m usually Ready For Drawin’. Brain hacks.
so, yeah! that’s a lot of words, but! Warmups are important! Save your joints, take less advil, do better drawings!
How on earth are you supposed to draw from a sholder? might as well tell me to draw from the foot. It makes no sense
What the fuck do neurotypicals talk about. I tried telling my mom about a show that I really like and explained the symbolism and she made fun of me for “talking about a tv series for like 20 minutes”. Same with like 4 other people around my age. All of them even told me outloud they wanted to hear me talk but then mocked me for actually being serious. I do not understand
me at a NT person: do you mind if I tell you about x?
Them: sure!
Me: speaks for 5 minutes interrupted
Them: not every thought you have needs to be said :))))
me: oh. *never speaks again until we leave that wretched place*
this isn’t a neurotypical thing y’all. this is an asshole (at best) thing.
you’re being treated poorly by people who don’t care about the interests and thoughts of others and enjoy hurting people’s feelings, belittling their interests, etc. this is not normal at all and i’m really sorry people have done this to you
like again, none of this is true. this is not the norm. i’m gonna try to be gentle here, but the comments on this post are… not good.
1. this might be the most important point: you cannot tell if someone is disabled or mentally ill based on their interests or how they talk or how they present themselves. you cannot assume someone is neurotypical because they like things you don’t. you also should not forget about masking, which people will especially do at places like work.
2. most people have as many interests and as rich of inner lives as you and it’s potentially harmful to assume they don’t. it leads to you dehumanizing and potentially really hurting those around you. “they’re not as smart/insightful/interesting as me” is not a great approach to socialization
3. just because something doesn’t interest you, doesn’t mean it’s objectively uninteresting or meaningless. and no one is all deep conversation all the time. most disabled and mentally ill people i know, myself included, also like talking about our jobs, pets, etc.
4. you are upset by people dismissing your interests while… dismissing people’s interests. a lot of the comments are just dissing people for not being interested in talking about film/tv or for liking things like sports.
5. i’m autistic and i hear that autistic people are “gifted” or “super geniuses” or whatever a lot and it’s dehumanizing. the idea that i have some deeper insight or heightened intelligence because of my disability is not helpful.
6. sometimes conversation is about give and take you will need to listen to and talk about things that don’t interest you much because you value the person you are talking to and they deserve a turn to share
tl;dr: people who dismiss your interests are rude, cruel, and/or doing so unintentionally. call them out or try to distance yourself from them. surround yourself with people who care to listen. at the same time, people who talk about things that don’t interest you are not inherently boring, shallow, or neurotypical. neurodivergent people can and do talk about things like the weather and going shopping.
