Practice Does NOT make Perfect!

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kronek67

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Ever hear the saying "Practice makes perfect"? WRONG! I may be new to airbrushing, but I have studied a lot of other things and when I did my freedive training, it clicked.

Practice does NOT make perfect. Perfect practice makes Perfect.

Have you ever been practicing something, it was going good. You could see improvements. Then it suddenly starts to get worse and you cannot correct it. The harder you try the worse it gets until you finally get frustrated and give up thinking you can never learn this? Then you went to far. Once you notice that you have stopped progressing and have made a change for the worse, STOP. Come back to it tomorrow. Up until you stop progressing, you are focusing on the proper techniques and building good habits. One you start getting worse, you are only reinforcing the wrong habits. So now that 20 minutes of good practice is ruined by 3 hours of bad. Its not about the amount of time you spend practicing. It is about the QUALITY of your practice. That is where people are doomed to fail. They think that they have to spend hours upon hours to learn something. Don't get me wrong, it does take time. It is just how well you spend that time determines how much time you need.

For most things, I recommend setting a beginning time limit that can be expanded as you improve. Example would be to start with 15 minutes of practice. then when you can get through the entire 15 minutes without any issues stretch it to 30 minutes. However, Airbrush Tutor has made limiting your practice very simple with the use of the practice sheets. Here is what I recommend. It will also keep it from being as boing.

Print out 10 copies of the following practice sheets. Dots, Lines, Blends. Start with ONE sheet of dots. When you finish that sheet, STOP. Your practice session is done. There should be several hours between practice sessions. Example. One session each day. Or if you have time you can speed up the process by doing one in the morning and one in the evening. As you start to master dots, add in a sheet of lines. Then as you master lines, add in blends. After you have completed those start with the other tutorials like the eye. At this point you may not need the sheets any more for your practice. Do a few dots, lines and blends, then start on the eye. If you start getting frustrated, STOP. Come back to it tomorrow. Do a few dots, lines, blends and start again.

Here is an example of the practice sessions. I'm breaking it up into 5s. Some will be able to do it in 3s others will need to print more sheets and do it in 10s.

Sessions 1-5: One sheet of Dots. STOP
Sessions 5-10: One sheet of Dots, One sheet of Lines. STOP
Sessions 10-15: One sheet of Dots (optional), One sheet of Lines, One sheet of Blends. STOP
Sessions 15-20: One sheet of Lines, One sheet of Blends, (Optional, Start the Eye, but give yourself a time limit or stopping point).
Sessions 20-25: One sheet of Lines (optional), One sheet of Blends, Work on the Eye or next tutorial if you have finished the Eye.
All Future sessions: Do a few Dots, Lines, Blends, Then work on a painting. Weather it be a tutorial (recommended in the beginning) or something you want. The more you paint, the more time you will be able to paint

Doing this will break up your practice sessions, reduce you picking up bad habits and you will improve faster. Once you start painting, you will not be struggling with the basics as much and can focus on painting. The more you paint, the more time you will be able to spend on each session. Just start off small and build up to it. At anytime you get frustrated, that is a sign to stop or possibly just move on to a different portion of the painting.

I hope this helps, and yes, this is the process I'll be using as well.
 
Practice does make perfect providing the person or examples you are using to practice with are perfect..
But a lot of the pros learned things by bad practice..LOL
 
Practice does make perfect providing the person or examples you are using to practice with are perfect..
But a lot of the pros learned things by bad practice..LOL

LOL. Yes, I know that there are a lot of great artist on here (far better than me) that have never done dots and lines. With enough practice, most people will figure it out. I for one don't want to waste my practice time and that is kind of what this forum is about. Learn from everyone else's bad and good practice so it does not take you as long to learn.
 
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Just as long as your learning keep up the practice and I agree with what you said too.But you can also learn from mistakes too!
 
I learn from my mistakes everyday aibrushing. If I do something that looks crap say I try blending but I do it differently than I normally do and it turns out bad. I've learnt 2 things from my little experiment. 1 don't do it that way again and 2 how to fix my mistake.
What I have learnt from everyone on here is there is no rite or wrong way. A person may do something one way and another can achieve the same effect another, even though one way might be unorthodox to you it maybe perfect for another person.
I always experiment to see which I like best. Even if it is the wrong way to some people
 
Ok, so maybe I need to clarify. Perfect practice does not mean not making mistakes. Mistakes are a big part of learning. I will sometimes draw a big line right across the middle of my drawing just so I can learn to fix it.

What I posted is also not about getting out of practicing. It is about practicing smart. When you start out, you have to think about everything it takes to make a line.
Set distance,
Press for air,
Start moving,
Pull back for paint,
Push forward to stop paint,
Stop moving,
Let off air.
Once you have that ingrained into your subconscious, it is only, line.

To get that process embedded into your subconscious, you need to do it repeatedly. Problem is, most people will start off doing all the steps in the proper order, but as they get tired or sloppy, they will start messing up the order. Example.
Press for air,
Pull back for paint,
Start moving,
Stop moving,
Let off paint and air at the same time.
I know from experience,that makes a mess.

Now if you practice for 1 hour the right way followed by 4 hours of the wrong way, the wrong way is what will get embedded into your subconscious and you will have to focus to do anything different.

On the other hand. If practice the right way and stop when you get sloppy. Then come back to it another time, each time you will be able to practice longer before you get sloppy and the right way will get embedded into your subconscious to the point where you don't think about it. It happens really fast too. When someone first starts out they need to focus on using the right techniques and stop when they get sloppy so that they don't pick up the bad habits over the good ones.

The amount of time it take before someone gets sloppy is different for everyone and changes. Starting out, one person will be able to focus for an hour while another can only stay focused for 15 minutes, but that time will grow each time they practice.

Practice as much as you can, but take a break when you get sloppy.
 
Yup, all about developing that muscle memory. I don't even think about it anymore (then again I've been airbrushing for over 13 years) I know practice is boring and I am one of those who never did the dots and daggers practice. For me it was just natural and instantly clicked. Reduction and air pressure was the thing I had to "practice" when I started out. However I do recommend the practices to anyone I've showed the basics to. For the majority, doing these practices will cut down the learning process, especially with the daggers. a lot of people fall into the rut of basically spray and pray with these and hope one day it clicks for them. It's the same with pinstriping. Doing the S curves, lines and half curves is extremely important. Get those down blindfolded and you can pinstripe virtually any design because all those are common to pretty much every design.
 
Depends what you are wanting to perfect...if you don't mind perfect mistakes... lol. Yes, no point in practicing mistakes!!
 
In my humble opinion each individual simply needs to practice whatever they are having trouble with. You might be fine with dots, lines and blends but gosh-darn awful with dagger strokes. So spend time practicing your dagger strokes but don't let that stop you from doing your best at a full on painting. Newbies especially will become disillusioned if they are stuck on basics seemingly forever.

Life would be pretty dull just doing 5, 10 or 15 sheets of dots. Just saying. :)
 
In my humble opinion each individual simply needs to practice whatever they are having trouble with. You might be fine with dots, lines and blends but gosh-darn awful with dagger strokes. So spend time practicing your dagger strokes but don't let that stop you from doing your best at a full on painting. Newbies especially will become disillusioned if they are stuck on basics seemingly forever.

Life would be pretty dull just doing 5, 10 or 15 sheets of dots. Just saying. :)
I agree with that!becouse if all you ever do is dot's,line's and dagger strokes how will you ever know what greatness you can get too
 
I agree with that!becouse if all you ever do is dot's,line's and dagger strokes how will you ever know what greatness you can get too
True, but it's all about fundamentals. If you are trying to paint the human figure, it is 100 times harder if you don't know human anatomy. While it may seem pointless, it makes it easier in the long run. Same goes for mixing colors or anything. You can study or "practice" mixing colors and be efficient at it, or spend hours everytime trying to make the color you want, when it should only take a few seconds if you had practiced the fundamentals of it.
 
Ever hear the saying "Practice makes perfect"? WRONG! I may be new to airbrushing, but I have studied a lot of other things and when I did my freedive training, it clicked.

Practice does NOT make perfect. Perfect practice makes Perfect.

Have you ever been practicing something, it was going good. You could see improvements. Then it suddenly starts to get worse and you cannot correct it. The harder you try the worse it gets until you finally get frustrated and give up thinking you can never learn this? Then you went to far. Once you notice that you have stopped progressing and have made a change for the worse, STOP. Come back to it tomorrow. Up until you stop progressing, you are focusing on the proper techniques and building good habits. One you start getting worse, you are only reinforcing the wrong habits. So now that 20 minutes of good practice is ruined by 3 hours of bad. Its not about the amount of time you spend practicing. It is about the QUALITY of your practice. That is where people are doomed to fail. They think that they have to spend hours upon hours to learn something. Don't get me wrong, it does take time. It is just how well you spend that time determines how much time you need.

For most things, I recommend setting a beginning time limit that can be expanded as you improve. Example would be to start with 15 minutes of practice. then when you can get through the entire 15 minutes without any issues stretch it to 30 minutes. However, Airbrush Tutor has made limiting your practice very simple with the use of the practice sheets. Here is what I recommend. It will also keep it from being as boing.

Print out 10 copies of the following practice sheets. Dots, Lines, Blends. Start with ONE sheet of dots. When you finish that sheet, STOP. Your practice session is done. There should be several hours between practice sessions. Example. One session each day. Or if you have time you can speed up the process by doing one in the morning and one in the evening. As you start to master dots, add in a sheet of lines. Then as you master lines, add in blends. After you have completed those start with the other tutorials like the eye. At this point you may not need the sheets any more for your practice. Do a few dots, lines and blends, then start on the eye. If you start getting frustrated, STOP. Come back to it tomorrow. Do a few dots, lines, blends and start again.

Here is an example of the practice sessions. I'm breaking it up into 5s. Some will be able to do it in 3s others will need to print more sheets and do it in 10s.

Sessions 1-5: One sheet of Dots. STOP
Sessions 5-10: One sheet of Dots, One sheet of Lines. STOP
Sessions 10-15: One sheet of Dots (optional), One sheet of Lines, One sheet of Blends. STOP
Sessions 15-20: One sheet of Lines, One sheet of Blends, (Optional, Start the Eye, but give yourself a time limit or stopping point).
Sessions 20-25: One sheet of Lines (optional), One sheet of Blends, Work on the Eye or next tutorial if you have finished the Eye.
All Future sessions: Do a few Dots, Lines, Blends, Then work on a painting. Weather it be a tutorial (recommended in the beginning) or something you want. The more you paint, the more time you will be able to paint

Doing this will break up your practice sessions, reduce you picking up bad habits and you will improve faster. Once you start painting, you will not be struggling with the basics as much and can focus on painting. The more you paint, the more time you will be able to spend on each session. Just start off small and build up to it. At anytime you get frustrated, that is a sign to stop or possibly just move on to a different portion of the painting.

I hope this helps, and yes, this is the process I'll be using as well.
Thanks kronek67, I will be implementing this method into my practice sessions. Never thought of breaking it up like that. Great.
 
It all gets so technical today.. . Ten times this twenty times that.

If you do dots lines etc there's many things you can train them. One big thing I think is not to do too complicated things at start. I loved painting a feather..... On off painting, regular lines, shading and a nice result in a painting that doesn't take much time. Find yours :)
 
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It all gets so technical today.. . Ten times this twenty times that.

If you do dots lines etc there's many things you can train them. One big thing I think is not to do too complicated things at start. I loved painting a feather..... On off painting, regular lines, shading and a nice result in a painting that doesn't take much time. Find yours :)

I agree, my practice is not methodical at all. I generally look at a reference and paint a small area of the picture using the dots, lines, fades, and daggers I need to replicate it. I also use any shielding, scratching, and erasing techniques as well.
I generally do these small practice pieces with scrap pieces of Illustration Board from past projects. Practice pieces that don't need erasing or scratching, I just use plain old printer paper.
 
If practice doesn't make perfect, I am in serious trouble!:eek:ops::cry: Get what you mean about picking up bad habits though.
 
If practice doesn't make perfect, I am in serious trouble!:eek:ops::cry: Get what you mean about picking up bad habits though.
No one will ever be perfect, everyone makes mistakes and there's no way your every going to get perfect control out of an airbrush. Even people who have been doing this forever forget to clear tip dry and get a huge splat of paint on their painting. Dru Blair makes tons of mistakes while teaching his classes, and with each blowout or splatter, he shows the class how to fix or make it less obvious. The key is knowing how to fix mistakes because everyone makes them.
 
I have thought on this for awhile, and come to the conclusion that, even though we become more skilled as creative people, we also become better at "masking" what we perceive to be errors.
The better we are at the latter, the greater our skills 'appear' to be.
 
In my humble opinion each individual simply needs to practice whatever they are having trouble with. You might be fine with dots, lines and blends but gosh-darn awful with dagger strokes. So spend time practicing your dagger strokes but don't let that stop you from doing your best at a full on painting. Newbies especially will become disillusioned if they are stuck on basics seemingly forever.

Life would be pretty dull just doing 5, 10 or 15 sheets of dots. Just saying. :)
I second that sentiment too.:thumbsup:
 
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