Eye for Detail

I wanted to share this concept as it pertains to the art I’m learning, but last night’s I Ho Chuan (IHC) class made it even more important, in my own mind at least, to go over.

You see, I’ve been learning to look for details that help me draw better, that I wouldn’t have known before if someone hadn’t shared it with me. For example, when looking at a quadruped mammal in profile, the head is bony and doesn’t flex, the neck is flexible, the upper spine (where the ribs are) is not very flexible (comparatively), the lower spine is flexible, the hips are bony and not flexible, and the tail is flexible. So, when drawing I now keep in mind the alternating hard and flexible.

Used someone’s painting as reference for this and going through this exercise made me realize where they had made errors, yet I hadn’t noticed the errors when simply looking at the picture.

There are other things I’ve learned to look for when drawing, such as drawing a very simplified skeleton of the creature so that I know how to draw the creature in proportion and be able to move it into different poses accurately. I’m still not great at this but getting better.

My instructor had me use reference photos to draw animals in flat planes, to create their three-dimensional shape, as an exercise to figure out how to draw them in different positions and “see” where things go.

Definitely need to do more paw studies, among others :D

Last night it felt like Sifu Rybak was doing the same thing with us in IHC class. We were guided in new ways to look at our forms that I hadn’t necessarily considered before. I find that with both the art and the Kung Fu, having someone guide my eye is very helpful in improving my ability to find other details myself that I wouldn’t have if someone hadn’t guided me to some of them in the first place. Plus, as was pointed out to us all last night, we learn more by teaching (or sharing) with others.

Numbers for the Year:

Pushups (modified): 7078 / 50,000

Situps (modified): 7102 / 50,000

Weapon Form: 224 / 1000

Hand Form: 135 /1000

Random Acts of Kindness: 64 / 1000

Sparring: 84 / 1000

Kilometres: 198 / 1609

Memorize “Mastery”: 3

Nurture Relationships:

Blogging: 20 / 52

Art Like it’s My Job: 38 / 252 days

Declutter my life: 21 days this year where some decluttering was done

Greatcoat project:

Improved flexibility: 14 days – yesterday was the first day I’ve been able to put my heals on the ground during a Downward Dog