Keeping my Mind Sharp in Retirement
Eight months into retirement, I'm settling into a good routine and pace of life. Keeping both my mind and body sharp is key. Here’s how I keep my mind engaged:
For me, keeping my mind sharp means staying mentally active and challenging myself in different ways. These areas often overlap.
I stay active mentally:
I actively read.
I vary genres to make reading interesting and challenging. For example, I’m reading Gardens of the Moon by Steven Erikson, an epic fantasy novel that's new to me. I’m also reading Ryan Holiday’s Wisdom Take Work and Sketching in the City by Toby Haseler.
I try to vary the genres to challenge myself and to have a different, new experience while I read. Currently, I'm reading Gardens of the Moon by Steven Erikson, which is described as an epic fantasy. Something different for me.
To build the reading habit, I set a low daily goal of reading just two pages. It’s easy to achieve and helps me read more without pressure.
I keep each book with a pocket notebook for ideas, concepts, and new words to look up.
Right now, they are all three physical books, but I also use a Kobo to read. Typically, I read Fiction on the Kobo and keep a small notebook for quotes or thoughts.
To keep the habit easy, I set a low reading goal of only two pages a day. This makes it easy to start, and I usually end up reading more once I get going.
I challenge myself mentally:
Developing a Robot in Claude Cowork.
To challenge myself, I’m learning to create a robot using Claude Cowork. The process of building markdown files and programming tasks keeps my mind engaged and reminds me of building Excel macros in my working days.
The robot now handles routine tasks, tracks my plans, and challenges how I manage projects. I always review its suggestions myself.
I have the robot doing routine tasks that used to take me a fair bit of time, and it also helps me keep track of tasks and my plans, and challenges me on what I'm working on.
I never let the robot decide; it just presents options to me.
Learning Claude Cowork and finding robot tasks reminds me of building Excel macros during my working days.
Creating art daily.
Creating art daily is enjoyable because I focus on the process rather than the outcome. My aim is to simplify complex subjects and express my interpretation, not pursue realism.
I fed it all the books I have, the courses I own, and some of the key artists I follow on YouTube, and it presented a first-pass daily art curriculum. It's a first pass, and I modified it to work exactly for me, but it gave me prompts and skills to think about building.
I started making art just a few years ago and have enjoyed it deeply ever since. It’s an activity you can begin at any age. I stay clear about what I want to achieve, and I measure my progress against my own goals rather than others’ work.
The key to a sharp mind is to choose activities that challenge you, keep you active, and encourage ongoing learning and growth.
I just started this a few years ago and really enjoy it. Something that you can pick up at any age. I'm clear about what I want to get out of it, and I'm intentional about it. That way, I compare what I've done against what I wanted to achieve, not other artists.
The keys to a sharp mind are to intentionally challenge it, keep it active, and continue learning and growing.
Let me know your thoughts in the comments below.
Practice Needs a Purpose
Practicing drawing needs a purpose. Likewise, practicing football, baseball, and the violin requires a purpose. So before you start any practice, you need to be clear on your purpose.
Purpose lets you experience total satisfaction. When you know what you are practicing for, you have clarity when you are done that you either achieved the objective or understand what you need to do next time to complete your purpose. Either way, you get feedback.
Today's drawing focused on using colors on the same side of the color wheel to create a sketch.
Not using the "actual" colors of the object but just picking two colors to draw. I achieved that objective. This drill will allow me to think beyond the object's color and more toward a fun, exciting color pallet.
What is your purpose for doing something today?
Lemon
Colored pencils again today.
I used yellow and the complementary color purple to give the lemon structure and highlights. With the light coming from above, the highlights are strong on the top and cast a strong shadow.
Progressing
I was hesitant to draw today. I had the pressure and negative energy of failure. I was procrastinating because my drawing wouldn’t be good and would frustrate me. The opposite happened; I am one drawing closer to improving my skills. 1% improvement daily. I will improve my drawing by drawing.
What do you want to improve, but you are generating friction and procrastination?
Donald Duck
Today I drew Donald Duck.
If you follow my Instagram feed JDHayes50, you know I’ve been on a Disney Character kick. It started when we were done at Disney’s Food and Wine Festival, and the Tropical Storm came through. My wife and I were at Disney Springs and came across Learn to Draw Disney Celebrated Characters Collection book. I picked it up, thinking we would be quarantined in our room for a while.
I am enjoying the step-by-step tutorials.
A rookie question, but the step-by-step tutorial has overall shapes you draw and then refine down to the detail. So how do you remove the general shape lines to get to the final drawing? I’ve tried erasing it, but the overall shape gets out of whack.
I hope you enjoy this.
Water Kettle with Proportions
There are techniques to help with drawing subjects in proportion. Using your pen/pencil at eye level is a method to help determine ratios. For example, I used my pen to line up the kettle's total height, the spout's height, and how far the handle extends from the body.
This drawing seems to be in proportion and resembles the real thing.
Manager Vinylmation
Today’s drawing was fun. Using two pen sizes, I created my interpretation of the Manager Vinylmation. It was fantastic to free-hand the Vinylmation’s contours and then use the fountain pen to add the details.
Mix it up as you work on your drawing and art skills.
Challenge yourself and take advantage of all the tools you have
Chair – Negative Space
When you have a complicated subject to sketch, an effective technique is to draw the negative space. You focus on the open spaces and draw those rather than the intricate details of the subject—an effective way to draw on the right side of your brain and to trick your left side.
Today’s chair drawing was completed using this technique. Not perfect, as I still got caught up in the left side of my brain “telling me” what I saw. The chair leans, but I am getting better at showing perspective.
1% improvement every day.
Double Writing
Hey, my handwriting is a mess, sometimes unreadable and boring. Today’s Sketchbook Skool Art Bootcamp exercise is Double Writing from Andrea Joseph. Double writing is easy to add fun and flair to your lettering. She walks you through a four-step process to practice double writing.
Contour of the Keys
A contour drawing focuses on the edges of the object. Today’s exercise was to draw the contour of your keys without lifting your pen. The focus is on developing confident lines.
Doing it in pen, in this case, a Pilot Prera fountain pen) allows me to focus on the lines; there is no erasing or “starting over.”
After I set the contours, I went back and added the details. Excellent enjoyable exercise to start a Saturday morning.
Blind Contour by Feel
Today’s exercise was a blind contour by feel selfie. You place your finger on your nose, move around your face, and have your hand follow along. I like how my eyes are aligned and feel confident with my lines.
Another interesting exercise to develop confidence in my lines.
Blind Contour Drawing
Back to basics today.
I’m starting the Six-week Art Bootcamp class at Sketchbook Skool. This course is exciting. We start with pen and pencil on paper and work with colored pencils and watercolors.
Fun and exciting. I am looking forward to it. Today we completed a blind contour drawing. This technique is where you look at the subject only and let your hand follow your eyes.
I heard an excellent comment from author Neil Gaiman about writing in a new book, which is equally relevant to a new sketchbook. Remember, everything can be fixed except for a blank page. Draw on!
Water bottle
Here is a sketch of my personalized water bottle. It has been a while since I drew and posted something. I was thinking about where the friction has come from. As I have gone from pure novice to amateur, I have built unnecessary expectations. When you are a novice, you have no expectations and don’t self-judge what you are doing; you do it. When you arbitrarily cross over to amateur, you somehow develop expectations that lead to friction. Now I’m feeling somewhat disappointed in my drawings when I haven’t been practicing for very long.
Watch out for this arbitrary shift and the related increased expectations. The friction is not worth it.
Cup
I’m happy with the perspective on the cup’s top. I used the pencil measuring technique to measure the ellipse. The length vs. depth of the ellipse is much greater than your brain says it should be. That was key to getting the correct perspective. Today feels like a breakthrough day for me.
The overall balance of the cup’s sides is good. I am making progress one day at a time.
Morning Coffee
Here is a sketch of my morning coffee. I am still working on the perspective of the top. Still too round and doesn’t give the depth of the angle. I now realize this is my left brain telling me what I am seeing and what I should draw. Next time I need to use the picture plane to get it into a two-dimensional view.
Live Portrait Model
Drawing a two-dimensional portrait out of a book is tough, but a three-dimensional model is even more challenging.
You have the left brain interfering and dictating what you should see and draw, and your right brain trying to draw what you see. Putting all the learnings into practice is challenging. Therefore, this is a learned skill, not a God-given talent you have or don’t have.
It is tough, but I am continuing to work through it. I think I have made a 1% improvement from yesterday’s drawing to today.
Madame X
Today's drawing is day two of developing my portrait skills. Today was a warm-up exercise of drawing John Singer Sargent's Madam X. Focusing on the proportions and how the eyes, ears, and head proportions line up.
Putting aside what you see, people are even more alike than you think. There are infinite unique faces and features, but almost everyone is the same in many respects. For example, the eyes are halfway between the top of the skull and the chin, and the back of the eye to the back of the ear is the same distance as the front of the eye to the top of the head. In this crazy world, another example of what we have in common.
Learning the isosceles triangle of the head, eyes, and ears is fantastic. Progressing 1% a day.
Eyes Have It
After a break for health reasons, I am back working on and enjoying drawing. The next chapter of my Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain book course is portraits. The first section deals with proportions and precisely where the eyes fall o the skull.
Interestingly the eyes fall equidistant from the top of the head to the bottom of the chin. So even though our eyes (left brain) challenge this thought, it is accurate.
Today’s sketch is a basic shell with the axis and horizon drawn in on both the front and profile views of the head. I was getting comfortable with the placement of the eyes.
The Office Corner
Today’s sketch focuses again on the perspective skill. Using the picture plane, I drew my Basic Unit (the Formula One photography on the left of the corner) on my picture plane and then transferred that to my shaded paper.
From there, I drew the remaining elements. I’m happy with how I could draw the view to scale and didn’t run out of space on the page. Most everything in the view was captured to scale.
1% improvement!
The Corner
Today’s sketch focused on sighting the angles in a room corner with just a pencil. First, I drew the central vertical line, which always remains vertical regardless of the viewing angle. And then, using my pencil, I visually saw the angle for the floor and ceiling with the vertical corner.
Getting good and working these angles and tricking my left brain, which is convinced the lines are straight.
Focused on constant improvement day by day,