This first training week was devised to reorganise my current approach to creating art.
Put simply: let go of all techniques and return to the fundamentals.
As my skills gradually mature, the question is no longer merely ‘Can I draw it?’ Instead:
- Which techniques are worth developing further?
- Which are simply habits formed over time?
- As the choices multiply, how can I establish clearer criteria for judgement?
This training therefore focuses on seven directions.
01Creating New Hatching
Continue creating new approaches to hatching, including line direction, density, spacing, overlap, and pen pressure.
The focus is gradually shifting from ‘adding more varieties of hatching’ to ‘understanding which lines suit which situations’.
02Building a Hatching Catalogue
I am writing a hatching catalogue of my own.
It includes newly created kinds of hatching, their pen grips, drawing angles, speed, and pressure, as well as the occasions, areas, and effects for which each is suitable.
The greatest value of this process is turning movements once guided by experience and feel into methods that can be analysed and tested.
03Form Studies
Alongside line work, I have reintroduced form studies into this training.
The method centres on quick sketches. Rather than pursuing detail, I practise capturing proportion, weight, direction, and the overall impression with as few lines as possible.
This helps prevent a dependence on local detail from obscuring the overall form.
04Perspective and Space
Perspective is a key area I need to strengthen again. I believe the habit of practising perspective should be maintained at every stage of an artistic career.
This is not about making every drawing conform to perspective. Only by truly understanding spatial rules can I retain sufficient control when simplifying, distorting, or especially when deliberately removing perspective.
For perspective practice, I recommend choosing subjects that genuinely interest you.
I will also continue referring to the architecture of Carlo Scarpa and I. M. Pei to study the relationships between space, geometry, material, and weight.
05Studying the Lines of Masters
Use a small sketchbook to study artists from different periods, cultures, and media.
My emphasis is not on completing a whole work, but on taking apart a fragment:
Where a line begins, where it ends, why it turns, and where leaving space is chosen over filling it.
Here, copying is not about reproducing a style, but about reverse analysis. The small format also helps keep the practice focused.
06Appreciating Art and Reading
When appreciating a work, I now deliberately separate ‘liking’ from ‘analysing’.
Beyond looking at the image, this week I focused on subjects that evoke mono no aware for me and recorded why. One example is the beauty of fragile geometric forms: perfect geometry depends on a light bulb, which can lose power at any moment. This would shatter the geometry that is perfect now, giving rise to a fragile beauty of mono no aware.
Reading is another form of training the visual imagination.
My recent reading of Yasunari Kawabata’s The Old Capital and Jun’ichirō Tanizaki’s In Praise of Shadows is not primarily a search for subjects to turn directly into works. It is a way of developing a finer sensitivity to time, space, and beauty.
07Clarifying My Visual Direction
This part is still developing.
As the techniques available to me multiply, choosing becomes the truly difficult part.
There is more to explore in the next training week!