Daffodil Accident

[eller]

A page in a black sketchbook that was a gift from CaitlynMurphy. In case you're wondering why I work with art supplies I got from other people so often: I'm such a ridiculous level of 'social learner' I'm not just more motivated but literally learn more art when the stuff I'm using has some connection to another human being. So, sending stuff back and forth it is. XD (I'm not actually gaining anything financially because I also send stuff to others. I'm learning to draw better this way, though. Buying the same sketchbook for myself would be useless.)

In this case, the white Posca blotched. Badly. I used the large ink blots to create large sunlit areas so it looks kinda-sorta intentional. (I hope.) XDD

Comments

[yhlee]

EEEEE!

Yeah, I don't think I'm quite that socially motivated but I am definitely socially motivated. It took me SO LONG to realize that the reason I almost never read novels anymore is if there's no one to discuss them with, my motivation to read evaporates. Whereas I can motivate myself to read nonfiction if it's procrastination research for a thing I plan to make.

[eller]

With me, it's not even about motivation - I really retain knowledge and experience better when they're associated with a person. Basically, drawing practice with pencil from person XYZ will get me better results and more of a learning effect than drawing practice with random pencil, even if it's the same brand and everything. It's not about motivation, just, apparently, I store information very much person-based. LOL

[yhlee]

No, that makes sense. I think I don't have that social effect as such; I am kinesthetic, so if there's a touch component where someone can demonstrate things for me, but I guess in principle a robot demo would work?!

Weirdly, the thing that helps me is interaction, and verbal/vocal interaction DRAMATICALLY helps more because I have almost zero visual memory but very good sound memory. It was super weird discovering in the sewing machine class that I knew a lot more about Sewing Machine 101 and associated fabric stuff because my brain was basically playing back a cassette tape of my mom talking to me about it in childhood, and I specifically know it's playing back the sound of her voice because that knowledge/those memories are encoded in Korean in her voice even though I'm not generally actually fluent in Korean. Likewise, I could not for the life of me get art instruction out of books, and videos were very very hard, but it was DRAMATICALLY easier for me to retain art instruction over VIDEO where the instructor would specfically give me feedback or explain a thing IN CONTEXT and I could hear their voice; and then my brain literally plays back the correction/principle/suggestion/explanation/whatever when it encounters a similar CONTEXT again. Text by itself, or even email feedback, doesn't tend to "stick" as hard because I actually have an extremely shit memory for written text. Actually, I think this explains why an app like Duolingo also works for me: it's not a connection with a human as such, but it is interactive and it's audio. (That said, the languages I choose to spend time on are socially motivated!)

The weird side-effect was that I discovered that art instruction videos, which had failed for me for DECADES, start to work AFTER I have taken a course with the instructor and am able to connect that to the instructor feeding me XYZ bits in the CONTEXT. So, I guess it's social-adjacent but the dominant thing is the auditory component of an interaction.

...I don't know if that made any sense at all, I burned all my brain cells on the edits to that book earlier today. /o\

[eller]

No, that makes perfect sense! I also learn by touch, but I don't learn so much from listening - like, back when that was a thing, cassette tapes for learning didn't work for me at all. I learn best in a social setting, but I don't actually need spoken instructions. (My sound memory is fine, but the downside is that I also very quicky experience auditory overload. Nope, can't listen to music while doing anything else, either... LOL) I prefer direct feedback in a back-and-forth way (communication) and, at the very least, to be able to file information under "related to person XYZ" in order to be able to access it later. Even sitting next to someone else without direct interaction helps! Video sort-of-works, but less so when I don't know the speaker personally.

Basically, in this particular case, I'm doing art practice, and I actually learned some stuff by doing this drawing... Like, how to deal with blotchy white pens, and how are daffodils built. (Probably some other subconscious things, too.) Except I'm now not just storing this in some kind of mental folder "Things About Drawing", but also in the mental folder "Things Related To Friend Cait", and the latter is much more efficiently organized and easier to access. XD

[yhlee]

Got it! My memory for verbiage is terrible, so I still benefit from note-taking (which helps kinesthetically). Unless it's specifically Western music, I get verbally overloaded with instructions. Like, I don't retain written instructions but at least I can go back and look at them again. XD

My mental folder is in fact organized much more by "things about drawing" than "things related to friend XYZ" when it comes to accessing information, but motivation is somewhat tied to physically being around people I like, physically for preference, video as a distant second. I love interacting with people over text, but it's not particularly useful for in-the-moment productivity or mental folders of things I learn.

[eller]

Heh. When I drag up things from memory, it very often goes like "this is what ___ and I talked about that night on the balcony" or "this is what I practiced on the handmade paper ___ gave me for my birthday last year" or "this is a refined version of the code ___ and I programmed after that boring party". It's only rarely "this is what I read somewhere" or "I learned this in a course". It's not disorganized learning, precisely, (and I'm actually efficient enough at learning stuff) but the organization is decidedly people-oriented.

(Oh, and I was never able to take notes while someone is speaking. Not sure if that's a learning type issue or simply a bad-at-writing issue, though.)

Motivation... is a different thing. XD I mean, I'm competitive as f*ck, so, uh, does that count as people-oriented as well? XD And when I'm not being competitive, I'm mostly trying to entertain an audience (like with drawing, music, storytelling or shadow theater). I have some areas of life in which my motivation is really intrinsic, though. Math... I'd still be into math if there were no other people around. And it's still more fun in company. XDD

[wayfaringwordhack]

Lovely piece with the posca pens. I also like your solution to working with their blobs. So many people praise posca pens, but I am not enamored of the ones I have. :( Maybe if I try a larder nib...which, would of course, leave a larger blob, but I am thinking of working with them in a way that wouldn't fear accidents, happy or otherwise.

Your learning process sounds fascinating! :D

[eller]

Nah, poscas are... just not very good?!? I mean, I love acrylic pens in general, but the poscas are both the most expensive and the most accident-prone. The cheap Chinese acrylic pens I typically use don't do this stuff!

[wayfaringwordhack]

Oooooh, tell me more! What brand do you use? I just thought I was a loser for not being more excited to jump on the posca bandwagon. :P

AND LOL for "larder" nibs. Too bad one can't edit after a comment has been replied to.

[eller]

The ones I typically use are called FlySea, and they're available in packs with three black ones and three white ones, which suits my style of sketching (on toned paper) very well. They're conceptually very similar to poscas, except they work...

[wayfaringwordhack]

The "they work" being the key. :D I am so limited with what I can get in Lebanon, but I will keep my eye open for them.

[eller]

Indeed. I also have this irrational preference for art supplies that work. XD I mean, I occasionally enjoy forum games of the "crappy art supplies" kind, and I have collected enough crap to be able to play, but, in everyday drawing? Yeah, no.

[amberdreams]

Poscas can do that, but if you hadn't mentioned it in this case, I'd never have thought the larger areas of white were accident recoveries!

[eller]

No more expensive brand acrylic pens for me. XD I mean, sure, I can use random blobs in a controlled manner, but also, I prefer pens with a somewhat more regular behavior... The cheap ones are actually much better.