Craft Notes: Mastery

Pablo Casals in Deep Practice

 Choose a life of Growth:
     
       It's said that when Spanish composer and cellist Pablo Casals was in the final years of his life, a young reporter asked him " Mr. Casals, you are 95 years old and the greatest cellist that ever lived. Why do you still practice 6 hours a day?" What was Casals answer? "Because I think I'm making progress". That's the kind of dedication to continual growth that you should have. The people that reach their potential no matter what their profession or background, think in terms of improvement.

        *Excerpts from Self-Improvement 101 book: by John C. Maxwell

Practice Makes Perfect

Like the old saying goes! Here is a killer clip to shed some light on this.

Ira Glass on Storytelling from David Shiyang Liu on Vimeo.

Immortal Work

It is normal not to be satisfied with your work, that is a mark of someone pushing to be the best they can. From what I've ran into just doing the work and earning that 10 thousand hours and getting those thousands of ugly drawings (animations) you should be in a better controllable state. Here is a great quote to the Dream chasers/ Craft pushers out there from Orison Swett Marden: *Regard your work as Stradivari regarded his violins, which he made for "eternity". And not one of which, was ever known to come to pieces or break. When a piece of work leaves your hand it should bear your "recommendation". Below is a great shot breakdown I found, to a great poem piece from a inspirational movie Dead Poets Society.

From a Painting background, I've seen people get good but just do that same template piece and are just satisfied with that alone, not pushing to the next level, challenging themselves, exploring new possibilities, just getting by with mediocrity. In my opinion how you feel( i.e bored, angry) when you paint a painting ( I think this may happen too in animation or any other art form) is transferred to your work and is reflected back to the audience/ viewer. Just an observation of mine, you can definitely tell/ feel the innovators and pioneer trail blazers.

The Great Art Babbit

Another awesome find in the net. I don't have any recording from Art, but to find a documentary of him with him is "Treasure" indeed. Enjoy!

Bill Tytla

Wow, ran into this voice recording of Bill Tytla. Also some example of his work.

Glen Keane Advice

The example above is just so, alive and appealing the fluid shape transitions.


It seems when you run up against a problem (while pushing your Craft), you always think it's just because " I'm not good enough" but it's not that. It's just that you've kinda hit the limit of you knowledge, and you gotta go out and observe, find, get, and discover something more. "Those are really great" the best times, when you feel like you stink and you can't get it, any better, your stuck, and your in a rut. That's like "man", the world is open and your ready to learn something new. You gotta go, you gotta take advantage of it. Sometimes you wallow in that for like a week and that's crazy.

*this is a great example of hitting the zone, the flow, zen, when your rocking.

Once I really hit my "Key Poses" (Animating), it's more of the joy of it. You know it's like I've practiced it enough and you can now just go ahead and play that piece on the piano. And its a joy, the expression, and I'm living it completely, lost in the moment animating it.

-Following are excerpts from an interview by Clay Kaytis

Great Ani Theory Vids

Powerful stuff to learn here. Awesome work "Ugur Yetisen"

Traditional Master Art School in Florence

This is just Insane! Wow.. you would hear people talking about going to Europe and learning how to paint and stuff. From the Lineage of the Renaissance Masters no doubt. And we are so lucky in this tech age to catch peek at these, super specialized schools and what its all about. Just a jaw dropper for me.