{"id":3395,"date":"2020-01-23T19:32:15","date_gmt":"2020-01-23T19:32:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/eu.shop.wacom.eu\/us\/?p=3395"},"modified":"2026-06-05T09:24:49","modified_gmt":"2026-06-05T16:24:49","slug":"this-one-resolution-will-last-you-the-rest-of-your-life","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/community.wacom.com\/en-us\/this-one-resolution-will-last-you-the-rest-of-your-life\/","title":{"rendered":"This One Resolution Will Last You the Rest of Your Life"},"content":{"rendered":"

Header: Boticelli\u2019s <\/span><\/i>La Calunnia<\/span>, an interpretation of a painting by Apelles, from a description in an ancient text.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n \n\n

\n\n \n

Nulla Dies Sine Linea <\/i><\/strong><\/p>\n

\"Not a day without a line.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n \n\nSo goes the motto of the <\/span>Art Students League of New York<\/span><\/a>, considered one of the most influential art schools in America.\u00a0 Yet, it\u2019s not a structured one. Founded in 1875, it was revolutionary for its time, rebelling against rigid educational conventions by letting students self-direct without degree programs or required courses for a tuition of $5 a month.<\/span>\n\n\"\"\n

The League in 1940.\u00a0 <\/span><\/i>From their website<\/span><\/i><\/a>.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n145 years passed.\u00a0 Georgia O\u2019Keefe and Norman Rockwell studied there.\u00a0 Its alumni founded modernism and pop art. But its patrons in the Vanderbilt family came and went.\u00a0 It almost closed up in World War II, dropping to 200 students as college-age males were drafted and women went to the factories.\u00a0 Billionaires\u2019 Row grew around its little old building on 57th Street, but it never raised its monthly tuition over $300. Yet it persists, an indie art school plugging away <\/span>underneath the most expensive condo tower in the world<\/span><\/a>.<\/span>\n\nThe motto\u2019s a bit older.<\/span>\n\nIt was coined by the Greek painter Apelles of Kos sometime in the B.C. 400\u2019s, written down by Pliny the Elder a few centuries later, and has persisted in the western art world since.<\/span>\n\nApelles, court painter to Alexander the Great, was considered the best artist of his time.\u00a0 He could supposedly draw a perfect likeness from memory with ash from a fireplace, and paint animals so well it fooled real ones.\u00a0 It\u2019s impossible to attribute his skills to one thing, but \u201cit was a regular custom ... never to let a day of business to be so fully occupied that he did not practise his art by drawing a line,\u201d <\/span>explains<\/span><\/a> Pliny.<\/span>\n\n\"\"\n

None of his work survives, but this suspected reproduction was found at Pompeii.<\/i><\/p>\nThere\u2019s a reason learning to draw takes years: your brain is literally reshaping itself.\u00a0 It <\/span>rearranges the white matter<\/span><\/a> in your frontal cortex and <\/span>enhances its connectivity<\/span><\/a> with the parietal.\u00a0 Hand-eye coordination and <\/span>attention span<\/span><\/a> increase. \u00a0 In your body, it improves fine motor skills and buffs a range of muscles from your fingers to your back.<\/span>\n\nBut to get those sick stat boosts, you have to stay in \u201cdrawing mode\u201d long enough for your body to adapt to it.\u00a0 And the most reliable way to do that is to draw every day.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>\n\nI\u2019m not saying do <\/span>five <\/span><\/i>drawings a day.\u00a0 I\u2019m not saying bust out a finished painting every day.\u00a0 Maybe once you\u2019re pro level, you can make that your goal.\u00a0 But right now, you\u2019ve just gotten home from an 12-hour work day at the business factory.\u00a0 You have to make dinner, do laundry, clean up after a kid, or all of the above. It\u2019s all you can do not to break your nose collapsing face-forward.\u00a0 Art is out of the question.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>\n\n...Not quite, though.\u00a0 Before you go to bed, pick up your tablet pen and doodle some lines on a small canvas.\u00a0 You don\u2019t even have to save it. But now you haven\u2019t had a \u201c<\/span>zero day<\/span><\/a>.\u201d<\/span>\n\n\"\"\n

Clip Studio Paint, 1,000 by 1,000 px, about 10 minutes.\u00a0 I worked from the top left to the bottom right. It was improvised, but notice how the lines got neater and less sporadic as I went, just from falling into the rhythm of it and realizing what I was doing.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\nFeel bad for abandoning your passion project?\u00a0 Draw your character\u2019s face, or a single panel border.\u00a0 Now it\u2019s not abandoned anymore. Just looking at it and adding to it regularly keeps it fresh in your mind.<\/span>\n\nMaking this your resolution attacks your mental roadblocks from both ends, ensuring you draw, but also that you don\u2019t feel bad for not drawing enough:<\/span>\n\nAs artists, and as people in the modern world, we often live with the shame of not working hard enough to meet an imagined standard.\u00a0 But if doing something every day is your only requirement, then if you\u2019ve done something today, you\u2019re a success. And once you\u2019ve started drawing, you might find you want to continue.<\/span>\n\nDon\u2019t torture yourself even if you miss one, though, just resolve anew not to miss the next.\u00a0 It\u2019s the trying that counts. If you only draw 90% of the days, you\u2019ll still reap most of the benefits.\u00a0 If you only draw 50%, that still puts you ahead of everyone who only does it on weekends.<\/span>\n\nJust do what you can.\u00a0 The important part is not to stop.<\/span>\n\n \n\n

\n\n \n\nJanuary is Month One, dedicated to the <\/span><\/i>Wacom One<\/span><\/i><\/a>. \u00a0 Released January 7th, the new version is a drawing monitor\u2014our lowest-priced yet, offering all Wacom\u2019s build quality for half the cost of a Cintiq.<\/span><\/i>\n\nA large part of motivating yourself to practice is making digital art more convenient for yourself.\u00a0 And I can attest that it works. It fits neatly in a backpack. It can run off your laptop\u2019s battery.\u00a0 It can connect to Galaxy smartphones. You can even draw in bed. Within my ongoing resolution, my resolution for the coming month is to do something with it every day.<\/span><\/i>\n\nSince we started late (I got my One halfway through the month), I\u2019ll be extending this theme into February, so make sure to check back.<\/span><\/i>\n\nAnd while you\u2019re at it, <\/span><\/i>check out the Wacom One<\/span><\/i><\/a>.<\/span><\/i>\n

About the Author<\/h3>\n\"CSCS Jones is a Philadelphia-based freelance writer and illustrator.\u00a0 Some days he still forgets to draw.\u00a0 On those days, he reminds himself that a line can refer to writing, too.\u00a0 His other work is best seen at\u00a0thecsjones.com<\/a>\u00a0or\u00a0@thecsjones<\/a>\u00a0on Instagram.","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":3399,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2318,2317,2342],"tags":[414,415,416,29,417,418,234,31,419,420],"class_list":["post-3395","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-creative-inspiration","category-digital-drawing-painting","category-wacom-one","tag-apelles","tag-art-students-league-of-new-york","tag-classical-painting","tag-inspiration","tag-inspo","tag-line","tag-lines","tag-motivation","tag-nulla-dies-sine-linea","tag-painters"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/community.wacom.com\/en-us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3395","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/community.wacom.com\/en-us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/community.wacom.com\/en-us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/community.wacom.com\/en-us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/community.wacom.com\/en-us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3395"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/community.wacom.com\/en-us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3395\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/community.wacom.com\/en-us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3399"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/community.wacom.com\/en-us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3395"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/community.wacom.com\/en-us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3395"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/community.wacom.com\/en-us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3395"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}