I have been taking this drawing course online that gets into some of the foundations and theory of drawing. What's been really helpful to learn are some of the practical ideas of the applications of theory.

One of the lessons that I recently learned was taking time to get the form right. The problem a lot of people have when they draw is that they try to start with all the details. They want it to look good right away, so they don't take time to lay the foundational shapes and forms to create the right structure and right proportions. That’s why I have always had issues with proportions when I draw.

You have to take time to set up that structure and then you can go back and add all of the details and make it look good. And as the instructor mentions, this process follows the 80/20 rule. 80% of the drawing is form and structure while 20% is details. Inversely, 20% of the time is spent on form and structure while 80% is given to details. But if you don't take time to set up that foundation, the drawing is not going to turn out well, and you're very likely to just give up.

I've observed the same thing in my students with their writing. Most of my students want to sit down and write their first draft as a perfectly worded piece. It just doesn't work that way. You have to get a rough draft out first in order to structure and organize the information correctly. Then you go back and tweak the wording in the sentence vocabulary and all the other stylistic choices.

The more I think about all this the more I see that this rule applies in everything in life. In order to do something well, whether it's the creative arts, our jobs, our faith, whatever, we have to take time to lay a strong foundation and construct a solid structure, just like you would do when you build a house.

Are you taking time to lay strong foundations and build solid structures in different areas of your life? A lot of us are being given a lot of time that we did have before. Where might you need to go back and focus on structure rather than detail? Form rather than aesthetic?