shawnmeanders | Shawn Meanders

Disconnected Sundays

This was written January 05, 2025

Introduction

Hello everyone!

As I find myself writing this, it is roughly 5:30pm Sunday evening, local time. It has now been a few weeks since I’ve start a new experiment, Disconnected Sundays, with varying degrees of success.

Disconnected Sundays

What are Disconnected Sundays? Simply put, I’ve decided to spend` the entirety of my Sundays without access to internet. Thus, as I head to bed on Saturday night, I disable the internet from my laptop and phone. Then, I go about my Sunday life as normal, albeit without access to internet.

But why? Having realized I waste a significant amount of time on the internet, (and I do mean waste) and that it affects my mental health negatively, I set out to find a solution. There are two main culprits for this negative impact:

I easily get consumed by passive activities online, such as watching videos or mindlessly browsing.
I spend all my time thinking and worrying about communication with others, idly waiting for responses or communications from others, and constantly thinking about what to write to others, which generates a ton of anxiety.

Therefore, I opted to investigate whether avoiding these for one day a week could negate their negative impact. Whatmore, this could also hopefully increase my productivity.

Part of the inspiration came from the Shabboth. For those unfamiliar with it, part of this Judaic custom involves not being able to actively interact with electricity (for example, you can’t turn on or off a light). It’s been my impression that for a lot of people, part of this custom also involves further devotion to the scripture, resulting in impressive results. It also seems like a lot of people generally use this as an opportunity to read, study or do what I’d consider more productive activities (including close-knit social interactions).

While I am not a practitioner of this faith, I still find it a rather inspiring one. And I couldn’t help but ponder over this custom and its benefits. I eventually concluded that there were important take aways leading to an opportunity to better myself. And so, I landed on this notion of Disconnected Sundays.

Why Sundays? It’s simple, it’s the only day of the week I neither work nor go to school, so it seemed like the only valid option. In particular, on any workday, it seems like I’m “duty-bound” to using my phone.

Results so far

As I’ve said, it’s already been a few weeks since I’ve started.So, how’s it going so far? Well, it’s a mixed bag. For starters, I tend to stay up rather late on Saturdays. Indeed, it’s the only day of the week where I can afford to, and it sometimes is necessary when I want to inteact with family or friends in other time zones. With a 12-16h time difference, opportunities for longer calls or gaming sessions are definitely rarer. Accordingly, it’s not rare on Sundays for me to wake up around 12pm or 1pm, a huge chunk of my day already having elapsed. I’ve also had 1-2 days where I was fairly sick, and simply spent all day in bed reading and resting.

However, despite these “setbacks”, I still consider most of those days to have be fairly productive. I find myself reading a lot more than on average days, I manage to make good progress on homework and studies, I even find time to work on some projects (such as writing this current post). So overall, I would label this a success. So much so I’m wondering whether I should try to implement this on Mondays as well, although it might be a bit more complicated, and inconvenient for others.

While this covers productivity, there remains my tendency to stress over communications with others. Well, I still find myself looking at my phone fairly regularly, or at the very least thinking about it, and then realizing that I don’t actually have access to this functionality. Still, as the day goes on, this tendency gradually wanes, which is a positive tendency. It’s just a shame that benefit does not carry on through the rest of the week, and nor to the next Sunday, but it is what it is. Better a temporary gain than no gain at all!

Of course, this does not come without its lot of inconveniences. For isntance, I’ve had a few instances where I went out and just couldn’t look up specific information online, nor use a map to find locations. But hey, that used to be the status quo just a few short decades ago, so there’s no reason I shouldn’t be able to adapt to it, right?

Lastly, I must also admit that I unfortnately often lack in the discipline department. There have been a few occurences of me re-enabling the internet around 9pmi and communicating with others or watching stuff online. Still, that does not invalidate any of the progress I make during the rest of the day, far from it. And it’s something I should still be able to improve.

Conclusion

Well, there you are. Disconnected Sundays are a new habit I’ve formed, which I believe adds value to my weeks. And although it comes with some costs, the benefits definitely outway the negatives. Although keep in mind this is according to my own goals and mindset. Your mileage may vary.

Still, I do think it’s worth trying for yourselves, if you dare. If nothing, it’s at least an interesting experiment, and you could be find yourself pleasantly surprised by the results.

On that note, thanks for joining, and take care everyone!

Sleep Improvement Part 1

This was written January 02, 2025

Introduction

As mentioned in a recent update, I’m planning work on myself through the implementation of better and healthier habits. There are many aspects to consider: how to track and complete tasks and errands, finding ways to consistently study and work on projects despite a more constrained schedule, having a better diet, doing more exercise, etc…

But in order to maximize my chances of success, I should prioritize what’s most critical. In this case, what’s more important than sleep? If you don’t sleep well, it impacts everything else. Energy is low, concentration is poor, motivation is lackluster, even health starts suffering. This is why I plan to first attempt to improve my sleep.

Improving my sleep

So what’s the plan? Well, there are a few avenues I can explore. The main areas I can think of are:

Sleep Schedule/Consistency
Sleep Hygiene
Sleep Quality

Sleep Schedule

While sleep quality is harder to approach in some instances (E.g.: If it’s a health issue, or if I need to purchase items), there are still many things I can do to improve my sleep.

Obviously, the first thing I can control is my sleeping schedule and its consistency. Currently, I’m often rather lazy when it comes to bed time, often procrastinating ad-nauseum before heading to bed, despite knowing what would be best for myself. Sometimes it takes the form of idling watching videos or shows, sometimes in the form of chatting with others, and sometimes it’s simply wanting to relax a bit after work. But most of it stems from a lack of discipline on my part. Consequently, I should institute a clearly defined sleep schedule I abide by. According to my work constraints (and the current iteration of my schedule), I plan on having the following bedtimes:

Sunday: Before 10pm
Monday: Before 10pm
Tuesday: Before 11pm
Wednesday: Before 11pm
Thursday: Before 11pm
Friday: Before 11pm

But what about Saturday? Well…I sometimes plan late-night events with friend in North America, since that’s usually the most sensible time (due to the time differences). Thus, it might be a bit complicated to have a reasonable bedtime on Saturday. However, if I notice that it negatively impacts the rest of my week, I’ll adapt accordingly.

Two additional comments. First, I do not plan to have fixed wake-up times for now. The most important thing for me is to go to sleep at a reasonable time and hopefully get enough sleep, depending on what my body craves. Moreover, it’s hard to plan for nightly disruptions (like needing to use the restroom). But once I have a more regular sleeping schedule, I’m sure my body will adapt and I’ll be able to plan accordingly.

Next, while I state I want to go to sleep by a specified time, e.g.: “Before 10pm”, my goal is to get to bed 30 minutes ahead of schedule, yet have a margin of error.

Sleep Hygiene

Other than my sleep schedule, I could also work on my sleep hygiene. First, one thing I believe plagues most people nowadays is phone usage in bed. I’ve gradually started away while charging it at night, making it inaccessible, although I’m not always too disciplined about it. Beyond that, I also have the terrible habit of putting on a tv show when I go to bed. This is in part to drown out my own thoughts, which tend to spiral while I’m trying to sleep. I will thus attempt to remove those bad habits from my life. For the phone, the approach is fairly self-evident, and simply requires discipline. As for television, it actually feels less straightforward. I often worry about changing that habit, especially when I have something important the next day (e.g.: an exam). Indeed, I worry it might negatively impact my sleep and that I might simply be unable to fall asleep.

Thus, I think I might want to take a gradual approach. In a first step, I would swap out television for music (possibly classical music, or at least something relaxing). Obviously, I’ll want to add a sleep timer to it so it doesn’t go on all night. Eventually, if this transition goes smoothly, I can finally move on to a completely silent approach…unless my environment turns out to be too noisy (e.g.: Neighbors or street noises).

Conclusion

Well, here’s the beginning of my new journey towards self-improvement. As a first step, I intend on improving my sleep. I also plan to document this in a “journal” format, logging the times I go to sleep, along with whether I relied on television or not. I will then try to share my results here. If possible, I’ll try to log my wake-up times, and how tired I feel during the day, although I can’t make guarantees on this.

On this note, I hope you tune in next time, and that I’m more refreshed from better sleep! Hopefully this also makes you reflect on your own habits and how you might want to improve upon them. Have a nice one everyone! Take care!

2024-12-29 – Return and Updates

This was written December 29, 2024

Introduction

Hello Everyone!
My apologies, I know it has been a while since my last post. Unfortunately, my life has been hectic lately. In particular, on top of studying Chinese, I’ve been teaching English. While the workload should be manageable, I have yet to adapt to my new schedule, where my days are bookended by school and work (I have class in the morning, and teach in the evening). Along with transit in the afternoon, I’ve been struggling to find the required time and motivation to accomplish anything outside of school and work. However, most eggregious of all is my sleep schedule, which has become a miasma of unhealthiness.

Well, enough complaining, it’s time to discuss what I’ve been up to, what I plan to do, along with potential improvements I would like to bring to my life.

Ongoing Projects

The first thing you might ask is, what about on-going projects? Am I going to complete them? When it comes to the programming projects, I do plan to complete the study app, and to create a blog post about it. I’ve even made progress on a working prototype during my spare time. However, it’s shifted to a lower priority lately, and so I’m not sure when I’ll actually get to it.

What about drawing? It’s been shelved indefinitely, though I would still like to return to it eventually. I might start by reading some material first, and learn the theory before fully diving into it. It’s relatively easier to find time to read, being able to do so almost anywhere. For example, I can read on the metro, whereas drawing isn’t really an option.

What have I been up to?

Over the past few months, the biggest change to my life has really been getting a job as an English teacher, and trying to adapt to it. My Chinese has also been steadily improving to a noticeable degree. And my social life has also benefited from meeting some new friends. But through it all, I’ve also been doing a lot of thinking.

What kind of thinking you might ask?

My future

One of the biggest things that’s been on my mind has been the desire to work on some larger projects, an endeavour I can be proud of completing. Yet, I haven’t really accomplished anything on that front. Friends and family have pointed out that learning a language and moving to Asia by myself actually IS a huge undertaking, but….

Yes, it’s definitely something big I’m proud of, and will grow prouder of as I get more and more fluent in the language. Still, it’s not quite a tangible, concrete thing. It’s an extra ability I’m acquiring, but it’s not a project per se.

Moreover, this past year, I’ve been feeling a bit old, having gone back to a school setting in my mid-thirties, surrounded by people in their late teens, early twenties. It’s not a bad thing, but it does make me ponder over my own future, and what I want out of it.

For this reason, I’ve arbitrarily decided that I want to get a bigger project underway, and get it completed by my 35th birthday. Overall, this gives me a timeline of a smidge under a year and a half. Will this be enough? Who knows! But if I don’t try, I’ll definitely fail.

But…what project should I consider? A programming project? Something to do with drawing? What about a video game? While I would love to dive into any of those, I don’t think it’s that judicious to start with something of that scale. Especially considering my current constraints. As I’ve said before, with school, work and transportation, I think it’d be best to choose something that I can work on from anywhere in small bursts. Thus, I think the first big project that I’d want to get off the ground will be writing related: I’ll be attempting to write a novel. I already have multiple ideas underway, along with a novel I’d started writing a few short chapters for last year.

I obviously have very little experience with writing, but I do have plenty of ideas (many of which I’ve been keeping track of). Moreover, considering I read every day, I don’t lack exposure. And once I start writing seriously, I’ll undoubtedly be looking at novels in a different light, (hopefully) absorbing ways to improve.

Unfortunately, due to copyright/leaking concerns, I won’t really be able to fully document my progress and experience with writing. However, I’m hopeful I’ll still be able to share some of the challenges I encounter along with potential solutions I iterate through during this journey. I might also have regular posts dedicated to my writing journey (E.g.: Every other week or every month).

What about the blog

Even though I have this new plan, I don’t intend to give up on the blog. For starters, I recently had renewed the hosting services for this blog, and it was roughly 150USD. While it may not seem that steep, in my current position (making Taiwanese money on a job with more limited hours, while not making any money through the blog), it still was a non-trivial decision. Therefore, I’m not going anywhere, and I’m definitely planning to pour more energy into this blog.

But then, what will I be doing here? For at least the next few months, I don’t expect to do any challenge posts, nor any big projects. Instead, I want to focus on things getting into healthier habits, both mentally and physically. I also want to figure out how I can become more disciplined and better use my limited time to accomplish what I’ve set out to, and maybe even more.

For this reason, I’ll open up a new section on my blog, which I plan to dedicate to this journey, along with discussing my past experience on that front.

Where will I start? I should prioritize based on important. First off: sleep. Currently, I have sleep issues, some which stem from self-discipline, some which stem from bad habits, and some from physical concerns. While the latter would best be handled by medical professionals, I can still focus on the first two. I’m hopeful that once I can improve my sleep, I will have:

More energy and better motivation
A better schedule to work with (E.g.: be able to use my mornings)

Once that’s done, I’m not sure what I’ll want to add. Maybe regular exercise, maybe a better diet, maybe improving my handling of “todo items”.

Conclusion

I’m planning to come back to the blog, altough it will be at a somewhat more moderate frequency. Moreover, I have big plans for myself for the upcoming year and a half! Though none of this is actually related to the new year, haha.

Hope you’re all doing well, take care everyone!

Handwriting Challenge – Introduction

This was written October 23, 2024

Introduction

Hello everyone,
It has been quite a while now, although not from lack of trying. Life has been hectic, but I think I’m finally finding some stability, albeit at the cost of a busier schedule. More on in a separate post!

Still, I will share a relevant update. I will soon start teaching English, which will involve writing on the board and correcting homework, both of which involve my handwriting. Currently, it’s no secret my handwriting is atrocious, whether cursive or manuscript. For this reason, I plan on improving it. And what better way than to set up a new challenge? As a bonus perk, I’ve read that handwriting and drawing skills are allegedly related, which means improving my handwriting could help with learning how to draw.

Plan

Obviously, I should highlight a plan of action. Starting tomorrow, I will practice my handwriting daily. However, I’ll limit how much time I spend on it to a session of about 15 minutes per day. I also plan to divide this into different stages.

First, I will work on my manuscript handwriting while writing on paper. For this, I’ll use grid paper (since I’ve already purchased some to write in Chinese, and can use the grids as guidelines) along with a fountain pen. I’ll need to work on both my pen holding technique, along with the actual strokes. Just as with drawing, I’ll need to build up “stroke confidence” and stability. Note that I will be working my way from individual letters to whole sentences, focusing on a mix of lowercase and capital letters. As for the duration, I’m arbitrarily deciding to limit this stage to one week. By the end of the week, I can evaluate whether it should be extended.

Since I’ll be teaching using a whiteboard, the next logical step is to work on my handwriting on a whiteboard. This will once again involve working on my writing implement holding technique, along with strokes. I expect this to be very similar to the previous stage, other than needing access to a whiteboard. Luckily, I go to a school with whiteboards in every class, and I should be able to access some classrooms during the day, giving me an opportunity to practice on campus. However, I won’t be able to practice on weekends or holidays. I plan to also devote roughly a week on this, subject to change on the basis of progress.

Once I’m satisfied with manuscript, it’ll be time to graduate to cursive. In my opinion, this is less relevant when it comes to teaching to children English as a second language. I therefore feel less pressed on time. I plan to mostly focus practicing on paper, although I might explore different types of scripts. I once again plan to dedicate one week.

Conclusion

And thus begins a new challenge. As of now, I do not know at what cadence I will be posting updates, since I have less opportunities to be on the computer. Additionally, I plan on writing significantly shorter posts than I have in the past. Nonetheless, expect more updates in the upcoming week.

Take care everyone, and I wish you success in your learning endeavors!

Webpages – Front-end introduction

This was written August 25, 2024.

Introduction

Ah, the web. It’s become almost ubiquitous nowadays. But although it used to be accessed mostly through browsers and webpages, it’s now often accessed directly through 1st party apps instead. Regardless, I think browsers and webpages still have a lot of value, and so does understanding them. For this reason, I want to dive further into how these actually work, so let’s get started.

Basic Architecture

First of all, most web interactions are broken into two components, a server and a client (Note that nowadays this isn’t always cut-and-dry, but it’s still often the case, especially for simpler situations):

The server is the remote machine that contains all the necessary information, and knows how to aggregate it and send it to the user.
The client is the user’s interface, usually the machine they use, whether it be a smartphone, a tablet or a computer.

Very often, the client will send a request to a server, and the server will send back the information to the client. It is then the client’s job to present it to the user. This brings us to the front-end.

The Front-End trinity

So what is the front-end? It is the client-facing code (hence “front”-end), is running on the client’s machine and is responsible for displaying content on the page. However, while the front-end IS running on the client’s machine, it is provided by the server. Nonetheless, the client can actually inspect it and modify it.

Most modern browsers have an option called “developer console”, which can usually be accessed with the F12 key. It allows you to see and manipulate a lot of information on the page. It’s definitely worth looking into and experimenting with it!
The main objective of web-extensions is usually to inspect what is on a webpage and either modify it or keep track of things.

As for the kind of code found on the front-end, it is usually a combination of three different categories:

The Markup language, which is in charge of the content of the page itself. It contains the different elements, such as columns, tables, text, etc… The main language used here is usually HTML.
The Style Sheet language, which allows you to define the appearance of the page, such as font, color, spacing, ordering, layout, etc… The main language used here is usually CSS.
The Scripting language, which is a full-fledged programming language that allows you to program behavior, modify the page on the fly, react to user input, etc… It allows webpages to be dynamic. The main language used here is Javascript (Although PHP is still used by some big corporations).

Note about the Scripting Language: most people will actually use a Framework, and there are many different Javascript Frameworks. The goal of a Framework is to simplify and mainstream the use of the scripting language, adding a lot of built-in functionality and libraries. Still, it’s possible to use Javascript without a framework, which is often called “Vanilla Javascript”.

The Back-end

So far, we’ve been talking about the front-end, and it might leave you wondering…if there’s a front-end, does that mean there’s also a back-end? Yes, there is: it’s the code running on the server. This includes, for example, the database (where all the data is stored) and API-endpoints that users connect to. The back-end, serving a different purpose, tends to be fairly different from the front-end, and is usually hidden from the user.

What’s Next?

This is but a basic overview of the front-end to give you a bird’s eye view of what’s involved, a simple starting point, yet an important one for anyone interested in understanding webpages and how to program them. In the upcoming weeks, as I work on my Chinese Study App project, I plan to release a few more guides discussing some of the elements highlighted here in more detail.

Chinese Study App – Introduction

This was written August 22, 2024 as part of theChinese Study App – Programming Project.

Introduction

Here’s my all new project, which I’m hopeful will not only be useful for myself and some of my classmates, but also to demonstrate how I approach programming projects, thus helping people learn how to tackle such tasks themselves.

Inspiration

I have been thinking about this specific project for a few weeks now. It started with a new exam introduced this semester: a timed oral presentation recorded on a computer. We were given some grammar patterns to use, as well as a topic to discuss. And while I was not a fan of this exam (in part due to the stress, stringent time-constraint and the fact this was happening in a room full of people simultaneously speaking aloud), I must admit that the more I thought about it, the more I was convinced it could be a great learning tool. Thus were cemented the foundations for this project. Moreover, I have since started a daily habit of writing in Chinese, and have been struggling with using/remembering more advanced vocabulary and grammar patterns, and thus realized such a tool could also supplement my writing.

Ideation and Planning

I have had this project in the back of my mind and have been having ideating for a while. But it was time to finally write down my thoughts and initial design for the project. Here it is in image form, with my terrible handwriting.

Chinese Study App – Breakdown of Project

Chinese Study App – Initial Prototype Design

A few notes on how I decided to write this:

I first wrote broad goals for what I want to be able to accomplish with it.
I defined the functionality I want for my program into different chunks.
I linked the chunks of functionality to related goals.
I defined the priority/importance of each functionality. There is only one I consider critical, (allowing the app to be “useful” and somewhat useable). There’s an additional one I consider necessary for the application to accessible. The rest I categorized as “Stretch goals/nice to have”, and will be disregarded for now.
I listed the basic tools/technology I want to use.
I sketched the design for my first prototype.

Goals

Practice speaking Chinese using randomly vocabulary and grammar patterns randomly selected from a list, and discussing a topic randomly selected from a list, within a specified time frame.
Practice writing Chinese using vocabulary and grammar patterns randomly selected from a list.
Learn and practice web development.

Functionality

[Critical] Input lists of elements (e.g.: grammar, vocabulary, topics) and randomly select a set number from each list.
[Important/Useful] Ability to export and import lists (or to save them).
[Stetch Goals/Nice to Have]Timers
[Stetch Goals/Nice to Have]Record Speech
[Stetch Goals/Nice to Have]Write and save text (Ability to write a composition using the randomly selected elements)
[Stetch Goals/Nice to Have]Customization of interface
[Stetch Goals/Nice to Have]Add definitions/examples to vocabulary/grammar

Tools

For portability and versatility, I opted to make it a web tool for now (which can in theory be used by both a computer and mobile device). Since it’s a learning opportunity, I opted to limit myself to HTML, CSS and “vanilla” Javascript for now. (If any of this intimidates you for now, you can disregard it entirely. For beginners, I don’t think knowing how to choose tools/technology is the most important.)

Design

Here’s once again an image of the design:

This design is very basic, and highlights specific functionality. The design would be broken into two pages: An editing/preparation page, where you prepare your categories and their elements, and a “practice” page, where you would be shown the selected elements from each category and would practice either speaking or writing.

For the editing/preparation page, each category:

Has a name that can be edited.
Has an input for a list of elements to be added.
Has an integer value that can be added to represent the number of elements to be selected.
Can be deleted.

There would also be an option to add another category, along with a “submit” button to choose the random items from each category and bring you to the “practice” page.

Meanwhile, the “practice” page would display each category, along with the randomly selected elements. None of this should be editable. Finally, there would be a “return” button, for when the user is done, to return to the editing/preparation page.

Conclusion

Above I presented my first ideas for the tool I want to build to help learn Chinese (Which really could be used for any language). I’ve also presented my initial approach to breaking it down, limiting the scope and initial design. Hopefully this can be helpful. If there’s anything that’s unclear, or you have outstanding questions, feel free to comment below. Take care everyone, and I wish you success in your own projects!

My Manifesto

This was written August 18, 21 and 22, 2024

Introduction

Let’s start it starkly, I’ve titled this “My Manifesto“. This might feel a little intense, but I think intensity is what I need (Even if it’s possible I’m misusing the term “Manifesto”).

Lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about my life, where I’m at, and what I want out of my future. For this reason, I’ve realized I should define what I care about and want to accomplish, and use those as guiding principles moving forward. Thus, I’m writing my personal “Manifesto”, guidelines on how I to approach things. I you could also call these commandments, or an equivalence of the laws of Robotics.

Rules/Axioms

strive to encourage people to learn new things, keep growing and become self-reliant, and to enjoy the process.
I strive to learn new things for myself and to keep growing.
I strive to create useful tools and techniques that will bring value to others.

Corollaries

From these three rules, I can derive some other helpful guidelines, which I’ll name corollaries.

In order to encourage people to learn and grow, I should inspire them, while also showing the inevitable pitfalls and growing pains, and how to approach them.
In order to encourage people to learn new things, I should cultivate their curiosity.
In order to help people become self-reliant, to myself learn new things, and to build useful tools, I must keep improving my own techniques, rigor and diligence, while documenting the process for others.

As time progresses, I will undoubtedly want to refine these axioms and corollaries, and possibly uncover new ones.

Conclusion

This is the current iteration of my personal “Manifesto”, which I will use to keep sight of my goals as I work on personal projects; a guiding light. Hopefully this proves useful to me, or maybe even to others. Though for now, I might create a condensed version to print and stick to my wall, as a personal reminder.

Condensed Version

“Manifesto” PDF

Learning to Draw Challenge – Day 26 – Shading – 2024/06/21

This was written June 22, 2024 as part of the 2024 Learning to Draw People Challenge

Introduction

After another long hiatus, it’s time to return to this drawing challenge. Today, I decided to learn a bit about shading, and so opted to try to draw an everyday object in the dark, with a single source of light. The object I chose was a mug (which definitely doesn’t count as a person). Here are pictures of the actual setup I was trying to replicate.

Before discussing the drawing, a quick note. I was planning to use a new tablet, but the app I’d chosen had annoyances. I thus opted to go back to my previous set up. I will eventually have to investigate a good android drawing app, please share recommendations. (Edit: While writing this article, I did some research online, and people seem to recommend “Clip Studio Paint”, although it’s apparently costly. I may give it a try.)

Drawing

Without further ado, here is my drawing:

A few comments about the experience:

First of all, I decided to add the source of illumination on the drawing itself: rays of light coming from the top-left, simply for reference.
I have no experience drawing real life objects, which hindered this shading exercise (I might eventually need to practice this, but it isn’t my primary goal with this challenge). I particularly struggled with outlining the general shape, which funnily enough, is in part due to the dark and reflective surface of the mug. That made it harder for me to properly evaluate the shape of the outline.
I really struggled with the handle and its proportions, especially the bottom part.
I eventually realized I should roughly measure(/estimate) proportions. For this reason, I tried to use my thumb to approximate ratios. However, I realized (unsurprisingly) that I need to keep the distance between my eye, my finger and the object constant (and similarly with the canvas). Finding such a distance was initially unintuitive, so I’ll need to work on this. But it should be useful.
While there were reflective surfaces, I did not want to draw them. This was purely a shading exercise.
At some point, I distractedly displaced the cup, which likely affected the results. One option could be to base my drawing purely on a picture I would take, but I feel like I’ll get a more vivid and visceral experience with drawing from the real life object, where I can also interact with the environment and see how things fluctuate (i.e.: experimenting).

Now, a few notes about the shading itself, which was the purpose of this exercise. First, my approach, which should be apparent in the drawing, was to first outline the different areas of shade, and then fill in the shade. I did the same for the shadow.

Here are the different elements I tried to recreate:

The dark and light area within the cup, which are both lighter than the other areas.
The dark and light areas of the cup’s shadow.
The dark and light parts along the side of the cup and the handle, which are fairly dark due to the dark blue of the cup.
Two light reflection spots on the rim of the cup.
Two light reflection spots on the handle.

Overall, as a first exercise in shading, I think this went relatively well. I’m pleased with the inside of the mug and the different tones of shades I achieved. However, there are a few things that could be improved:

The darker part of the mug feels off, because of it gets squeezed between both lighter parts. It’s hard to explain, but I think it’s an issue with the lighter area on the left. It is either due to the shape of the outline, or the inking technique itself. I will want to investigate different inking techniques for shading and see what works best.
The top of the handle does not look like it makes sense in 3d space, in part due to the shading.
The light reflection spots I tried to highlight don’t seem to be working properly. I might want to either drop that in the future, or research how those are handled by professionals.
The shape of the shadow is off. I decided to “wing it”, instead of doing it more carefully. But while I’m unhappy with the actual shape and proportions, I’m happy with the shading itself.
I will need to investigate the role of the orientation of the shading strokes (if I keep using this same technique). It seems to have an actual impact on perception. For example, aligning them vertically inside the cup seems to help suggest its depth. More research and experimentation is warranted.
The edge of shading areas should probably a little more diffuse and blurry than clear-cut.

But despite some of these faults, I’m still happy with this first experiment, and I think I’ve learned a few things, even having a direction for future investigations. Thus, I consider this a successful session.

Stats

The drawing took me a total of 44mins to complete. However, I neither recorded this session, nor timed any other parts of the process.

Conclusion

For this session, I did something fairly different for once, and it was interesting. As was my goal, I did learn a bit about shading, although it’s unclear how well it will translate into shading in the manga style (e.g.: shading a nose). Still, this is a fundamental concept of drawing, so it makes sense to dive in, even if only slightly. Moreover, I have some further directions to head into:

There are different inking techniques that can be used for shading. I’ve found a few on this website, and will want to experiment a bit with them. I’ve also found cross-hatching patterns here, and some hatching patterns and general exercises here.
I will need to investigate how to highlight shiny areas, which seems to be the dual of what we expect from shading.
With the hatching pattern, line orientation seems to have an impact on the perceived outcome.
I should start using my fingers at a distance as guides for proportions of different elements when drawing from a reference (like one imagines a painter doing).
I should experiment with different lighting setups (source, type, orientation, etc…).

Now that I have a direction for shading, I think I will want to have one more session where I focus on shading, and then get back to the main Challenge. Thanks for joining me on this exercise, and until next time! Take care everyone!

Learning to Draw People Challenge – Day 25 – 2024/05/13

This was written May 13, 2024 and June 20, 2024 as part of the 2024 Learning to Draw People Challenge

Introduction

Hello everyone, and welcome back!
After a long break, I’m happy to welcome you to the start of my third attempt. There have definitely been a few failures, but I’ve also learned from them, so hopefully this time will go better! Note that this have a rocky start for now. I would recommend reading Blog Update – Life Prioritization if you’re looking for more clarifications on the situation.

Before going further, you might have noticed that this is labelled as Day 25, and I have skipped over Day 24, this is because I had a small session where I drew models for Starting to Swim (Part 2). It felt uningenious not to include that session in my count, since I did practice that time. I may eventually release a post about it as a bonus one, but I can’t promise it.

Next, I’ve actually skipped the drawing exercises this session since I wanted to dive straight into drawing. I may eventually revisit the exercises, but for now, I think I may skip them.

It’s also worth mentioning that I dealt with some technical issues that were really annoying. For some reason, my tablet sometimes decided to erase entire strokes right after drawing them. I’m not quite sure what caused this issues, and whether it was the pen, the tablet, or my hand. Under normal circumstances, I would have to investigate this, but I actually was gifted a Samsung S6 lite tablet, which I plan to start using (with a different software) in the future.

Preparation

Before drawing, I considered my first frame and what it contains:

Closed eyes
Nose
Mouth
Cheeks

Looking at this list, there are a few things that came to mind. First, I’ll need to choose what style and variant I want for the different elements. What kind of eyes, what kind of nose, etc.. Not just in terms of the character’s attributes, but also the art style. Next, I realized that another important aspect, especially with respect to the nose, is shading. This is both a crucial and challenging drawing skill which I will definitely need to learn.

Eventually, I settled on working on noses, and looked at a few models to see what I might my options were. Turns out, there is a lot of variation when it comes to drawing nose. For example, it can be drawn as:

Simple holes
A small triangle
A larger triangle with the whole bridge drawn, along with shadows
A bigger and more realistic nose with the tip drawn in more detail

I thus opened my guidebook to the secion on noses, and opted to try some models, starting with a more detailed variant.

Drawing Session

During this session, I ended up drawing three noses. Here are my attempts:

First Nose

For my first nose (And no, I’m not talking about plastic surgery), I started by having a few struggles with aligning different elements. First, I struggled with the curves for the bottom of the nose (around the nostrils). For example, here is a curve I struggled with. You can see how the bottom left doesn’t match the rest of the nose:

I also struggled with some small details, such as the nostrils’ size. Here’s an example of one I was unhappy with (on the bottom right of the picture, i.e.: the left nostril). Fortunately, that’s easy to fix.

Beyond that, I struggled a lot with nose shadows and relief, but I will spare you the details. Enough to say that shadows are complicated, and I think I should have a side-quest: studying shadows.

Otherwise, I’m fairly happy with how this nose turned out. My main complaint would be that the top right part (the end of the curve) feels misaligned with the bottom part). A funny note that I wrote, the more I drew the nose and looked at it, the less it looked like a nose. The human brain can be weird sometimes. Here it is once again for reference:

Second Nose

First off, as a quality of life improvement, I opted to dedicate an area of my canvas to this nose, but also to put it on a different layer, in order to hide the first drawing.

Next, here are a few things I either struggled with or realized:

As with the previous drawing, connecting different parts of the nose without a connecting line can be challenging.
When drawing the nose’s tip, it seems easier to start with the line at the tip itself, and then adding extra lines around it.
The tip of the nose’s relief can be tough to center. Aligning different elements with each other to have a coherent whole has been non-trivial, and I need to make a conscious effort to build this intuition. Luckily, it’s something that can often be fixed through “editing” steps.

With my second nose, I’m happier with the general shape (which came at the cost of a lot of rework), although I’m a little disappointed with the shadows and reliefs.

Third Nose

Finally, for my third nose, I decided to go for a simpler model, but as part of an whole face.

At this point, I was definitely rusty when it comes to sketching faces, and this is an underwhelming attempt. Regardless, it is important to practice once more. Here, I ran into a few issues, not all nose-related:

I struggled with eyes’ direction (where they look). It seems like it’s based on a combination of the general shape and orientation, the placement of the iris, along with the placement, size and orientation of the reflection. More experimentation might be needed to better understand how those interplay, although for now I might just do it on a case-by-case.
Aligning the nose with the face wasn’t easy. Once again, it’s a matter of aligning different elements. It needs to properly line up with the “center”, but also the eyes and the eyebrows.
The shadows remained a struggle. Especially relating it to the topology.

Overall, I’m definitely dissatisfied with this drawing; there are multiple elements I’m unhappy with. While a few of the elements were simple drafts to help understand this conceptually, the mouth is definitely off, which does hinders the nose exercise. Moreover, I’m also unimpressed with the nose. The shadow feels off, and the nostrils aren’t great. Still, it’s work in progress, and the next iterations will hopefully be better, I just have to start practicing again.

Time Statistics

While drawing took me 43mins, and I took 19mins to write a sketch of post and initial sections, I have no idea how long I took to actually complete the article during my second run, so the statistics will be omitted for this session.

Conclusion

So, here are my takeaways:

There is definitely a tradeoff between detail and work amongst the different kinds of noses, and I will need to choose a specific version, and remain consistent and coherent with it. Also, the detailed nose will definitely be more challenging when it comes to doing different angles.
Coherence between different elements is extremely important, and something I need to work on. For now, this takes the form of reworks, but hopefully I will gradually build my intuition.
Aligning different outlines that aren’t continuous is important, and sometimes trickier than it seems.
I struggle a lot with topology, orientation and shadows. I should thus do a dive into those.
For my next session, I would like to do some shadow exercises. I’ll look up some simple ones, and what objects work are best to train with. I expect these will involve sketching objects I point a lamp at in the dark. I’ll try to get useful pictures to show how the process goes.

On that note, thank you very much for your patience, I know things have been slow and very delayed, but I’ve been needing to focus on my mental health and to figure out some priorities, as stated in Blog Update – Life Prioritization. I’ll try to get back into this proper, though I also have some important tasks and traveling coming up very soon, so no promises. Take care everyone and until next time!

This post is followed by Learning to Draw Challenge – Day 26 – Shading – 2024/06/21

Blog Update – Life Prioritization

Introduction

Hello Everyone,
As you may have noticed, a lot of time has elapsed since my last post, and I am sorry about my disappearance. Unfortunately, life has been a bit hectic and I’ve also been struggling with both motivation and discipline. Therefore, I figured I should take some time to think through what I want and need, and share my thoughts.

Ongoing projects

First and foremost, what about the ongoing projects such as the Drawing Challenge and the Programming Projects? What’s happening with them? They’ve mostly been put on hold.

Drawing Challenge

For the drawing challenge, I actually have an additional day of drawing done, and have started drafting a blog post. However, I’ve been feeling overwhelmed regarding completing the blog post and getting back into the challenge. You can probably tell this is a recurring challenge of mine. For this reason, I think I will actually need to add onto my existing strategy, and limit the word count of my blog posts. In this case, I think I should limit the individual day’s work to 500-1000 words, instead of getting carried away with thousands upon thousands of words. Moreover, I think I should focus more on broad strokes (pun intended), and not go into details about the individual aspects of the process itself. However, I will still need a retrospective phase on the drawing sessions, since I consider this a vital aspect of learning a skill.

I think limiting the word count should be good for both me and my audience. I realize that keeping up with my posts could be just as overwhelming as writing them is for me. Thus, having more bite-sized posts could be beneficial from multiple angles.

But while at the daily grain, I plan to limit the scope of the posts, it might still be good to have larger scope “synthesis” posts, such as when completing milestones (e.g.: a period of time, a frame or collection of frames for a scene, etc). In those, I could go into more detail about the learning process, and retrospect at a larger scale.

Programming Projects

For the Programming Projects, I have already written a Youtube Extension prototype, which I’ve been daily driving, although it still has a few minor issues. However, I’ve still not written anything yet. Why? Because the goal is to introduce programming at a digestible level, while demonstrating that it’s attainable and doable, and that you can tackle such projects on your own. However, this is a daunting task, which I want to do well. For this reason, I’m struggling to even get started. But that’s something I need to get over.

Improving Sleep

This is something I mentioned before in Learning to Draw People Challenge – Second Pause Discussion: I’m struggling with insomnia, and figured I should investigate ways of improving this. However, I’ve still not done anything about it. But it’s becoming increasingly important to resolve my sleeping problems, so I think I will:

Get a notebook to journal daily progress
Look at resources for potential techniques
Use trial and error and report back on my findings

Competing ideologies

Beyond my issues with discipline, I have two competing ideologies that contribute to my paralysis:

Everything worth doing is worth doing well.
It’s better to just do something, even if poorly, than not to do anything at all.

Because of these, I often feel unable to make progress on my projects, often feeling like the former should hold true. However, it is my belief that the latter also has a lot of value, since through doing, one gets to improve. Especially when iterating over and over again.

Putting some further thoughts into these, I think it’s a matter of context. They probably exist on a scale, and the purpose of the “project” should decide how “well” it should be done, versus how much you should just “do it and get your reps in”, in order to practice and improve. Some potential considerations:

Are you trying to learn something (just iterate) or are you trying to use your existing skills to accomplish something (do well).
Is what you’re doing a final product (do it well) or something that can easily be discarded or reworked (iterate)
Do you need a quick fix (just do something) or do you need a solid, permanent solution (do it well)

For this reason, I think my “challenges” blog posts (such as the Drawing Challenges) should focus on iteration and just doing it and getting something out, since my goal is to learn something. Moreover, none of the existing drawings are currently meant as a final product. Thus, I think it’s also fine for the blog posts to be made more quickly and with less effort. Meanwhile, since the goal of the programming projects posts is to teach people and show them how they can get started on tackling problems on their own, I think it’s important to do them well.

However, do note that this applies to the blog posts themselves, and not the projects. Paradoxically, the time spent on learning to draw should fall in the first category. If it’s worth learning, it should be worth learning well. Thus, I should not only focus on drawing daily, but also on improving. Meanwhile, the programming project itself doesn’t need to be perfect, since it can be further iterated on, and is meant as a guidance on how a layman can tackle such problems.

The future prioritized

I have a lot of projects and goals I’ve been wanting to work on, and thoughts on how to tackle them. Here’s an incomplete list of things that are either ongoing, or which I’m contemplating:

Learn how to be more disciplined and productive, and share what I learn
Learn Chinese
Learn to Draw
Programming Projects
Make Youtube Videos
Make posts/videos about my experience learning Chinese
Make cartoons about learning Chinese
Make a custom version of this blog, instead of using WordPress
Learning Sleight of Hand
Learning Animation
Learning Music
Learning Pixel Art
Take two of learning Photography
Writing
Drawing a Manga
Making a Video Game
Startup ideas

So, now the question is, how should I prioritize them? Well, first and former, one of the most important items on this list, currently, is learning Chinese. And as “what is worth doing is worth doing well”, I should probably prioritize it over other things if I truly want to learn the language and become fluent. For this reason, I should probably both prioritize it, along with items that can reinforce it, such as “learning to be more disciplined” (since that can reinforce most habits), “Making posts/videos about my experience learning Chinese”, and “Making cartoons about learning Chinese” (Along with a mystery programming project I have in mind).

Next, I would really, really like to get into more creative projects, such as writing, drawing manga or making a video game. Turns out, writing can supplement the other two, so I should likely prioritize it over them. Meanwhile, there are also dependencies: learning how to draw is vital to manga, and can be very useful for making video games (and although it would be a different art style, the fundamentals would likely be shared); similarly, Music and Pixel art can be useful when making a video game.

However, some of these could also be driven backwards. For instance, drawing Manga could be a great opportunity for learning and practicing associated skills. The main thing to note, however, is that there exists a hierarchy between some of these elements, and that some projects have more skill requirements, making them more complex. (E.g.: making video games).

Accordingly, I probably should have the following top-level priority for now:

Learning how to be more disciplined and productive (including fixing sleep)
Learning Chinese and related projects
Keeping the blog alive

And below that are other projects with no clear ordering:

Learning Challenges
Programming Projects/tutorials
Youtube Videos
Creative Projects (Writing, Manga, Video Game, Animation, etc…)

However, I must also acknowledge that there is value to completing existing projects. For this reason, I think I want to prioritize the Drawing Challenge, until I’ve finished the scene as indicated in Learning to Draw People Challenge – Take Three. Moreover, I’ll also want to prioritize writing up a tutorial on the Youtube Extension. But, it’s important to keep specific and attainable end goals for now. If the timeline starts getting in the way, I will have to reevaluate.

Personal Life and Complications

While these are the priorities that seem the most sensical in a vacuum, I must also acknowledge the reality of my personal life, along with my wants amd needs.

For example, I have reached a point in my life where I would love to have a love-partner. If that is to be the case, I probably need to invest time into dating and the likes, which will be time I cannot dedicate to my projects, but also which might modify their course and priorities (I’m not 100% sure how, but I will not reject the possibility).

Beyond that, I should also focus on my health. This includes doing more exercise (which I’ve already started with swimming, although that’s been on hold), but I might try to supplement with gym sessions. Moreover, I should probably look into my diet and try to eat healthier. All of which require both time and energy, and not only in and off themselves, but also in the form of research.

Then, there is the matter of money. At this point, I think it’s time for a new source of income, which might come in the form of a part-time or full-time job. This on top of my studies will definitely cut down on my free time. Notwithstanding how draining these can be. However, another alternative could be to find a way to make enough money from this blog (or some associated projects) to survive, which could mean changing my priorities to accommodate such a possibility.

Finally, I must also look for a new place to move to in mid-July, which will also require a lot of focus, energy and time. Yet it must be done all-the-same.

Conclusion

I care a lot about this blog and think I should definitely do something about it. I care about learning different things, and sharing my thoughts and experiences doing so. And if it’s something I truly care about, I should find a way to prioritize it. For this reason, I figured I should think through what I want for this blog, and how to make it happen. And part of this is to prioritize the different things I want on it, and to find way to make them happen with (or despite) my ongoing life. Based on this, here is my plan for the short term:

Find ways to be more productive and disciplined, including making constant progress on this blog.
Complete the scene for the new concept for the Drawing Challenge
Write the posts for the Youtube Extension

I think I will also want to alternate progress between the latter two projects at a weekly rate. One week writing the tutorials, one week drawing. (Although this might be altered on a case-by-case basis if I suddenly have a lot of motivation and inspiration for one of the projects).

Moreover, I should keep in mind the dichotomy between progress and quality, and adapt it to each project in a way that aligns with the projects’ desired goal. For this reason, I plan to limit the scope of individual drawing posts, and only increase a post’s scope when related to milestones, or I have the motivation and want to cover something I consider important.

Meanwhile, since I believe the programming tutorial posts deserve to be done well, I will put more effort towards quality, including asking for the opinion of some of my friends before posting them.

Beyond this, it remains to be seen. I expect once either of those projects reaches its defined end, or my life situation is altered sufficiently to heavily impact such projects, I’ll have to re-evaluate my situation and follow up.

Thank you all for you patience and understanding. Do let me know if you have any thoughts, ideas or just suggestions for any of this. Or even just words of encouragement. Anything would be appreciated. Have a nice one, and take care!