To start this section looking into visual approaches, the coursebook introduced the idea of the comfort zone. This exercise tasked me to investigate my zones. As instructed I created a series of circles on an A1 sheet of paper. I sat down and decided to populate the circles using different coloured post-it notes. This allowed me to reposition things, but importantly it allowed me to assign specific colours to the circles. I started with the central ‘comfort’ circle as I thought this would be the easiest area to identify. Once I had most of the central area filled, I worked my way to the discomfort zone. I felt it was odd that the exercises left the space between blank, so I also added into that zone, trying to identify things that I liked, were within my capabilities but made me feel uncomfortable.
Referring back to the previous section, which talked to Csíkszentmihályi's “Flow State”, I find the comfort zone model a bit too simplistic and much prefer the model described by Csíkszentmihályi. Visualising the relationship between challenge and skill I think it demonstrates more nuance when talking about the emotions involved with growth and skills development.
I thought it might be interesting to cross-reference my post-its with the flow model to see if a more detailed landscape would emerge.
Apathy
Cold & wet weather
Unstructured play
Boredom
Basic drawing
"Industry" comics processes
Numbers & Data
Pastels & pencils
Dry information
Rigidity
Relaxation
The sun on my face
Being by the sea
Feeling like I belong
Worry
Stories
Story development
Oil & Acrylic painting
Being left out
Charcoal
Setting goals
Criticism
Money
Control
Sketchnotes
Basic digital image-making
Verbal expression
Specificity
Cities
Anxiety
Watercolour Paints
Expressing myself through art
Alternate comics processes
Listening to my intuition
Digital painting
Portraits
Concept Art
Character Design
Ambiguity
Big crowds
No context
Self-promotion
Deliberate practice
"Fine art" drawing
Random experiments
Arousal
Talking about ideas
Making connections
Solving problems
Animation
Making Videos
Worldbuilding
Flow
Painting Models
Structured play
Gaming
Reading fiction
Looking at the lists above, what I find interesting is how much sits in anxiety! This includes both items from my 'stretch' zone, and also from my discomfort zone. What infer from this is that (for me at least) skills development is not only key to my productivity, but also for my growth.
I also feel tension with some of the items where I have built up skills. When things no longer present a challenge they actually can affect me negatively. The comfort zone might not actually be synonymous with safety like I first thought.
I can see that there are many things in the 'anxiety' category that I would like to develop further. I also see a barrier - the best way to improve them is through deliberate practice. However deliberate practice and random experiments are also in the 'anxiety zone', and unstructured play is in the 'apathy zone'.
This presents me with a big challenge - the executive functioning needed to employ the most effective strategies is going to be extremely difficult for me to achieve, and they are the route to the items that I want to develop. It feels like a "Catch-22". I am not sure how to solve this problem. I am also not sure where to even begin.
What I do know is that sitting keeping things in my head only isn't going to achieve anything. I need to somehow facilitate my brain's intuition and subconscious problem-solving abilities. Instinctively, I think that I might be able to do this in two ways:
Rely on 'structured play' by following guided workshops or instruction - I don't always follow the rules (see 'rigidity') but they give me a starting point and clear learning outcomes. I can access the flow state this way.
Utilise what I learned in the Making Mistakes on Purpose workshop to use my sketchbook to just get things out of my head, and reflect on what I see and listen to where my intuition takes me.
I need to also develop tactics that will lower the activation barrier for these activities. At the moment, I am thinking about:
How can I 'pre-messy' my sketchbook to remove the white page fear?
Can I make boring steps easier? I was intrigued by an idea from comic artist Brett Parson to get an ink stamp for his comic thumbnails to make it quicker and less boring to make the boxes. If I did something similar I could use stamps to lower the barrier to doing things like a daily drawing, or thumbnail ideas which I might be able to evolve into more finished pieces.
While I am currently not engaged with a client at work, can I start to create a new structure/daily routine that builds the activities into it in small doses? My business coach introduced me to an interesting article [1] recently which made me realise that it's more important for my creative time to be useful and quantity doesn't correlate with quality or efficacy.
How do I then best build up the skill to specifically stop and reflect on where I am at, where my skills have developed etc.? It's very hard for my brain to remain present enough to do that naturally.
What I do appreciate is how this exercise has created some structure for me to stop and think about these factors more presently. I believe that continuing my habit of spending time using my learning log fully will remain a very useful habit, and is a backstop to document and reflect on progress in a structured way.
References
Soojung-Kim Pang, A., 2019. Darwin Was a Slacker and You Should Be Too. [online] Medium. Available at: https://medium.com/nautilus-magazine/darwin-was-a-slacker-and-you-should-be-too-f6ad9d6d7184 [Accessed 8 December 2021].
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