#116 - Everything In Your Creative Pursuit Can Be Designed, From Your Work To The Way You Work
A fantastic way to look at every aspect of your life.
When you draw, you invariably idealize and simplify; you decide on a composition of lines and shapes. You choose how many tones to use, you decide which colors to use, where to deviate from observation, and to add or remove or change things for the benefit of a better composition.
You design the composition of your art.
The sequence, the series of drawings you make, one after the other, is a creative choice.
You design your body of work.
You decide what drawing tools to use: what paper, what size and quality, what sketchbook, which combination of pens and pencils to use, where to put them, or how to carry them around. You choose a bag and decide on which items—what ensemble of drawing tools—to put in there.
You design the composition of the tools you use.
You create a workspace: what table, what chair, what lighting, what drawing tools. You design your workspace.
You choose the art to surround you with, the books to surround you with, and both to inspire you. You design the combination of art and artists that you let inspire you.
You figure out a schedule for your days: when to do work, household chores, when to sleep, when to eat, shower, have leisure time, what type of leisure, and when to draw.
You design the composition of a sequence of activities in your day.
Everything is composition and design. Or it should be. Focus some attention on the design and composition of each of these. Don’t make them happen by accident.
Make these design decisions on purpose. The way to go about design is to first decide on one, two, or three important things to you and purposefully build everything around it.
In my case, I want to become better at drawing from imagination, so I have my tools, workspaces, and art inspirations set up so that I have them with me always, instantly ready to draw for a bit wherever I am. I work on removing unnecessary activities—like spending a lot of time designing posts for social media—things that don’t help me become better at drawing from my imagination. I also focus on my health—a healthy mind in a healthy body. Family comes first, but to be there for my family, I need personal well-being, too, and art gives me that.
Design everything about your life and optimize for the things you want to do.
If you don’t, strangers will make those decisions for you. Large corporations have just the addictive technology for you and just the addictive unhealthy food for you.
Everything is designed. Take control of every detail of your life to optimize it for the life you want to lead. Design your life.