It has been–indeed it's been!–just about two weeks of drawing Shinji Ikari, and the result is still quite subpar. I cannot accurately draw him from imagination, and even with reference I cannot produce consistent results. To me this indicates a faulty understanding of how to learn to draw. Let's think about this. As far as I've discerned, there are two basic methods to approach understanding. Well, no, there are many more, but these two pertain the most to memorization. In September Twenty-Seventh I quoted Nietzsche his

""What is good is light; whatever is divine moves on tender feet": first principle of my aesthetics."

When I read this quote on the first page of The Case of Wagner (years ago I read the first two pages of it, and enjoyed them immensely: that's where I'm at today) I was struck by the sentiment of it and quickly memorized the idea. But when I recollect it it is:

"That which is light is beautiful, and that which is holy treads on tender feet."

It's completely different! But to me this inexact memorization better conveys the idea of the quote–and better recalls it's context in the book (all two pages of it, yes). If Nietzsche had written my version of the quote, I doubt I'd have remembered it, but having read it already, my version acts as a bookmark for the train of thought Nietzsche brings us aboard in the book. Because the way I see it, a quote isn't just an interesting idea or piece of prose, it's the marker to a wider system of thinking: it lets the knowledgeable audience board the train of thought. If you're merely trying to express an idea implicit in the quote, rephrase it! That may be what I did above.

So the way I see it, one method of understanding is memorizing the words by themselves, and the other is memorizing the meaning, which does not necessarily memorize the words. In truth, I think we combine both in memorization. The problem with following the former route exclusively is that memorizing words is a meaningless memorization if you don't grasp the concept, the semantically represented meaning behind them. Similarly the latter has issues: you don't necessarily memorize the content proper, and instead form an understanding based only on what you grasped. I think the latter is a generally better method, but that's not to say it's incompatible with the former.

In middle school I memorized a hundred and some digits of pi, although all I remember now is 3.141592653589793238462643383279502884197169399375105820974944592307816-406286208998628034825342117067982141065132823. I found that the easiest way to memorize digits was to clump them into chunks, such as 846260 or 338. Each clump feels different, and changes the feeling of the flow of reciting the digits. They each have personality, almost. The more you do this type of memorization, the more naturally it comes. I've forgotten at least twenty, probably thirty to forty digits which I crammed in very quickly before their previous chunks were cemented in my memory. So we are able to take seemingly arbitrary pieces of information and assign meaning to them. Moreover, I think we need some kind of meaning in order to memorize things, which is why I memorized the pi digits by projecting meaning. And the more the memorization is practiced, the better one gets at seeing, making meaning. In order to effectively memorize, though, one needs not only to generate meaning but also to establish that meaning in the mind–retain it! The mechanism for achieving this is unclear to me, but enjoyment and interest, and the spirit of competition–fundamentally internally-driven motivations–seem to work well.

To draw better is to find meaning in the subject. And perhaps memorizing words and meaning are complementary, not opposing approaches...This is all the same as what was written in the Copying and Invention "chapter," isn't it? In that chapter I simplified a dog: perhaps that exemplified a way to generate meaning from image. Artists like Glen Vlippu and Kim Jung Gi have obviously found methods that work for them.

While drawing the below I found myself thinking "it's too bad you have to learn how to draw before you can draw anything!" By learning how to draw, I mean methods of drawing bodies, heads and etc. Like mannequin forms, or the musculo-skeletal system, for example. The way I see it, anatomy and the mannequin forms are methods of establishing meaning in the mind...but come on, it's better to find your own meanings and understandings! Don't copy those forms! Alas, that progress in art and civilization has become also in part the abstraction from reality. The greatest physicists rediscovered science in roughly the order it was discovered, you know.

To recap, generate meaning from information and use said meaning to retain information–turn all that around in your a bit too, I reckon. Use meaning-generation to learn both the the words and the ideas...one photographic memory coming right up! I wonder if 'meaning' place a role here, too. The Training of the Memory in Art and the Education of the Artist offers a way foward, perhaps.