Category: Howto

There are many Web 2,0 sites that allow you to organize projects using Wikis, checklists of to-do items, calendars and other systems. These can be of use to artists.

37 Signals are the leaders in this area but their work is not Free Software so I recommend Joyent’s Connector and Wikidot instead, or even better software installed on your own server.

Two posts from 37 Signals’s blog illusttrate how to use Web 2.0 productivity services to help organize art practice.

http://www.37signals.com/svn/posts/1226-how-to-manage-long-breaks-in-your-software-side-projects

Use a todo/checklist service to remind you of ideas you have yet to try or tasks that you need to complete for a project. Then when you return to the project after an interruption you can quickly remind yourself of what needs doing.

http://37signals.blogs.com/products/2008/08/backpack-helps.html

Use a wiki-style service to gather research materials such as images, references and notes for a project.

Although these examples are for software develoment and an academic research respectively it is easy to see how their lessons can be used to help organize art porjects.

The book “Getting Things Done” by David Allen describes an over-arching system for organizing work and life. It has two ideas that I think artists can use without adopting the system wholesale.

The first is to organize the working materials for projects into their own, physical, folders. Then when you need to return to the project you just get the folder and you immediately have all the materials you need to hand. Substitute “area of the studio”, “rack”, “drawer” or “portfolio” to taste. You don’t need separate sketchbooks, and the system allows for an unsorted folder and other ways for ideas to mix and percolate.

The second is to break tasks down into quickly achievable “next actions”, ideally achievable in 20 minutes or less each. So rather than “make 20 paintings for the show”, “mark up the next canvas” or “sketch the cat”. Yes, much of the value of art is long periods of visual contemplation or creative “flow”. But you need to get there, and worrying about the big picture is less constructive than building up to that state slowly but surely.

There may be more in Getting Things Done of interest to individual artists, and its system is applicable to admin and other non-art work as well. It’s well worth a read.

John K: Animation School lesson 1/ CONSTRUCTION/ The Head

Just about every cartoon being made today is based on the principles and style of cartoons made in Hollywood in the 1940s – Anime, Cartoon Network flat stuff -even the Simpsons. The only difference is, that some of the principles that make the classic stuff look so good have been lost.