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
“May you have a life of safety and peace”, said the witch, cursing the bloodthirsty warrior.
The words of the slain hold tremendous power.
It’s why any sensible warrior is a master of swift endings. Such as an arrow through the eye or a clean separation of head from shoulders. In a pinch, a slit throat will do. Though it really is best to avoid giving your enemy the chance to make even garbled curses out of their last bloody breaths. For even those without the slightest touch of magic have been known to make a curse stick if it’s uttered on the cold brink of death.
Eindred the Bloody collected curses in the same way that other warriors collected scars. Even in the wild chaos of battle, he was known to take a knee, pressing his ear to a felled enemy’s laboring lips.
May your every loved one die screaming in pain.
I hope you die with your eyes stabbed out and your heart in your hands.
You will never know happiness.
Your existence will be suffering.
May your greatest enemy rise from the grave and never leave you alone.
The last was his most recent curse, and Eindred wondered if it meant some great murdered brute was tracing his steps, waiting to catch him while he slept.
Eindred crossed the peninsula with a company of barbaric warriors, gaining a new curse from every enemy he felled. Not all of them would stick, he knew. But some undoubtedly would. And he would deserve every one.
Others in his company treated him with to wary, sidelong glances, because surely it was dangerous to travel with one so cursed as he. But Eindred was a force in battle, relentless and unstoppable as an icy winter gale, and so they swallowed their complaints, and contented themselves with leaving a wide berth on either side of his scarred, patchwork arms.
Eindred was marching at the back of the company when they came upon the village. It was a collection of squat, wooden homes tucked beneath a snow capped mountainside. From thatched rooftops, wisps of smoke from cooking fires rose, painting the blue sky in pale, meandering strokes.
This company tended to leave such settlements alone, and Eindred was glad for it. No warriors would be found in tiny mountainside villages, and though he might live to fight, he had no interest in wholesale slaughter.
This time, however, the company leader - a silent, brutish man, held up a hand.
Their company was running low on food, it turned out, and even from a distance, the warriors could see the village’s sheep - a trail of white spots on the green hillside.
Eindred was disappointed when, ultimately, violence erupted in the quiet village, though he did not lay down his thick handled blade.
The shepherd boy had refused to give up his master’s sheep, and when he shouted, a blacksmith had burst from his home, wielding a great hammer in his hand.
The battle was short.
When all was done, four lay dead. The shepherd, the blacksmith, and two young men who’d foolishly taken up crude wooden spears. The rest of the villagers huddled, terrified in their homes. The warriors expected to slaughter the sheep with no further trouble, but when they turned back to the field, an individual stood blocking their way.
His hair was dark - as the hair in these parts tended to be, and his face was sharp, both nose and cheeks splattered with freckles. Golden eyes beheld the warriors, and he watched them with a steady, measured gaze. Without the slightest hint of fear, he stood before them, his simple robe fluttering in the icy mountain’s breath, and said: “These are simple people. They have little in way of money or goods. It wasn’t for nothing that the shepherd, blacksmith, and teenagers died. They need these sheep. And I cannot allow you to take them.”
The other warriors in the company laughed at the young man’s foolishness - for that was what it looked like to them. Eindred did not laugh, however. Though the stranger’s voice was light, the air stirred around him.
It was rare to encounter one who commanded magics. Rare - but not impossible. And so Eindred alone was unsurprised when the young man turned his golden eyes to the heavens and summoned great branches of lightning which cleaved the skies above them. The world erupted and the men around Eindred screamed.
Eindred, who’d expected something like this, had already begun running.
Later, he would think it odd that the witch hadn’t bothered to move. But in the heat of battle, with lightning splitting the field at his back, Eindred’s attention had narrowed to the rough point of his blade - and then, the crimson place where it pierced the witch’s chest.
The skies silenced as Eindred pulled the wet, crimson blade free of its target.
It took just a moment for the witch to fall, but in that single, infinite moment, Eindred was subjected to the full weight of that golden gaze.
Legs folding beneath him, the witch crumpled, collapsing back onto the wild, wet grass. Eindred knelt beside him, grimly eager to hear the curse and be done with it. Surely a curse at the lips of one so powerful as this would finally bring an end to things?
To take one’s own life was an unspeakably shameful end for a warrior such as he. But a curse? Well, one couldn’t help how the wrong curse might speed things along.
The witch’s black hair was damp from the dew in the grass, and when he turned, it stuck to the side of his face and neck. His mouth opened and closed. Holding his breath, Eindred leaned in.
“-my hut…it’s just past…the next hill over,” the witch whispered. “In it, I keep medicines and herbs. For the villagers. And travelers who pass.”
Eindred shook his head. He didn’t understand.
Impossibly, the witch smiled. When he lifted a hand, Eindred twitched, expecting to be struck.
The witch’s bloodied finger, however, did nothing more than tap his chest. And then, in a wet, rattling breath, the witch, with his great power finally spoke his curse.
“May you live a life of safety and peace.”
Eindred sat, his thick, scarred knuckles braced in the dirt as the cold mountain wind whistled down the hillside at his back.
“What?” he whispered.
But the young man’s golden eyes were blank and empty, and the other warriors lay dead in the field. Only the relentless wind snapped and whistled in answer.
Eindred left.
Within a month, he’d joined up with another company. And it soon became clear the witch’s death rattle had been a curse of great power indeed. For wherever Eindred traveled, peace inevitably followed. Enemy warriors surrendered and when they didn’t, members within Eindred’s own company had sudden changes of heart. As for Eindred himself, not a single person would raise a blade against him, and Eindred had never been the sort who could raise his own blade against one who had no wish to fight.
And so for another month he wandered, hapless, without even the dark purpose of collecting curses which had driven him for the last several years.
He’d been raised with a sword in his hand, brought up knowing full well that his job in life would be to cut short the existence of any who stood against him. Not even thirty, and his soul was exhausted, worn ragged by such an life. And so, he’d sought a way out if it. Eindred had accumulated a terrifying number of curses - curses which would surely have felled lesser men than he. Before everything had gone wrong in the tiny village, he’d been sure it was only a matter of time before they overcame him.
But now, the witch’s single curse had overpowered them all.
Eindred was safer than he’d ever been in his life. He’d never known such a quiet, terrible peace.
After another month, he returned to the mountainside village. He didn’t have any good reason to return - other than perhaps the distant hope that a villager’s rage might be enough to overcome the curse. As he climbed the grassy hillside, he resigned himself to potential death by club or rake.
“Women have another option. They can aspire to be wise, not merely nice; to be competent, not merely helpful; to be strong, not merely graceful; to be ambitious for themselves, not merely for themselves in relation to men and children. They can let themselves age naturally and without embarrassment, actively protesting and disobeying the conventions that stem from this society’s double standard about aging. Instead of being girls, girls as long as possible, who then age humiliatingly into middle-aged women, they can become women much earlier – and remain active adults, enjoying the long, erotic career of which women are capable, far longer. Women should allow their faces to show the lives they have lived. Women should tell the truth.”
— Susan Sontag, ‘The Double Standard of Aging’(1972)
I am enough. Sit with that thought, truly consider it and what that means. It’s a simple enough phrase and it can be easy to skim past it and not truly realise whether or not you truly believe it.
One of my favorite underutilized bits of Star Wars worldbuilding is how feelings literally soak into the physical world around you, if you’re Force-sensitive.
Sometimes in really awful ways–Maul’s rage is still radiating off the walls in the Theed hangar 30 years later, because nobody goes in there to put new feelings into the walls, Luke can still feel Rey’s imprint on the meditation stone on Ahch-To after she leaves, Anakin and Ahsoka can still hear the screams of the dying in the Jedi hangar after the bombing–but that would also be there in good ways.
Imagine walking into the Room of a Thousand Fountains where you touch a stone bench where Master Yoda was just meditating on, you’re not even psychometric, you can just feel the warmth and calm he left behind while he sat there. Imagine walking into the the Temple gardens where a Jedi Master was watering their space azalea bushes and you can feel their contentment radiating off the walls. Imagine walking into the refectory and feeling last week’s younglings class’ excitement over their upcoming field trip, how golden and glowing it is in the Force. Imagine walking into the Jedi Temple aviary, where they keep their pet birds, hearing the gentle cooing of the convors, but also feeling the connection all the Jedi before you have had with these animals, the joy that’s been permeated into the floor and walls with how much they’ve loved their time spent there.
Imagine how being a psychic space wizard that can soak feelings into the world around you would change how you interact with that physical world. Imagine how giving a river stone isn’t just giving a neat rock, but giving someone the ability to hold affection and care literally right there in your hand, because you focused on putting all those feelings into the rock beforehand. Imagine how art performances would change, if you’re psychic and your audience is psychic, how you can literally hand them feelings or sit them on a cushion that you put a specific feeling into it, when you get to the climatic part of your play.
Imagine how being able to put feelings into physical objects and then hand them to someone would play out!!!!
Imagine how long it would take for that feeling to leave, and imagine how it would feel when Obi-Wan realizes he can no longer sense his Master’s presence on the teapot or his cloak
That’s the sad shit I’m talking about, yes! I mean, I love celebration of how this would change Jedi art classes and stuff, but also think about Yoda on Dagobah where he wraps up every night in Qui-Gon’s cloak that he uses as a blanket, using the warmth of Qui-Gon’s feelings as a comfort after everything he’d lost, until his own feelings soak into the blanket and he can no longer feel Qui-Gon’s warmth, only his own sadness.
This about the pot that Obi-Wan made that Yoda took with him to Dagobah, the one he had to shatter to protect himself from a probe droid, was it easier or harder to let it go, knowing that only a few faint traces of bb!Obi-Wan’s warm and golden concentration that were baked into the pot were left? That it was mostly only Yoda’s own loss?
He’s a Jedi Master, he lets these feelings go, he doesn’t let them bite into his heart, but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t feel them in the first place, it doesn’t mean he isn’t mindful of them, acknowledging them and then letting them go, but they still brush a fine mist of his sadness over the pot, layer after layer after layer until there’s so little of the grandkids left in his things.
Or think about Obi-Wan with Anakin’s lightsaber, that he doesn’t have to be psychometric to feel the sheer intensity of what Anakin poured into both the crystal and the metal of the saber, the hate and rage and pain and suffering as he killed the younglings, as he helped kill Mace Windu, as he killed everyone in his path, all while knowing it was wrong, but refusing to admit it, refusing to turn back, all while he attacked Padme, all while he attacked Obi-Wan, the people he loved most, Anakin was holding that saber while he did all that, every feeling is just soaked into that saber. Every time Obi-Wan picks it up, of course he feels those traces and they’re so powerfully intense, how long would it take for that to dissipate, especially with his own sadness piled on top of it, each time it was held in his hand?
Just imagine how careful Jedi have to be about the feelings they project out into the Force because that shit doesn’t just go out into the ether!!! That stuff stays in the walls and gets screamed back into your face, not just through the Force echoing it back at you but ALSO that the WALLS AND FLOOR AND CHAIR YOU’RE SITTING ON are all soaked with whatever feeling you’re leaking out.
Do you want that feeling to be screaming anger or a gentle calm?
