(11/22) Daily Practice

Last Week Total: 127, 959 dots

Practice 34: Monday (11/16)

3,700 dots - 20 minutes

I've previously stated that this time inherently becomes a great brainstorming session for projects within our course.  There have been many times where I've come across a great idea for representing my daily practice in a new form, and today, I finally hit upon one that I liked so much, I actually remembered it after the the 20 minutes.  I've also come to realize that this time becomes a great brainstorming period for any other artistic project.  I come across solutions to artistic problems all the time during this 20 minutes than during any other period of the day.  This really shows me that I've found something to activate my right brain.

Practice 35: Tuesday (11/17)

4,500 dots - 20 minutes

If I continue to do this after the semester is over, I wonder if I will continue to count the dots.  I know part of me wants to fill the entire page just to say "I've done a huge pointillism self portrait"--but the motivation to keep counting doesn't feel as powerful.  I wanted to title the piece the number of dots it took to create it, but thats a lot of work for just a title.  Part of me wants to see if my concentrate skills noticeably change by the end... but how would I know?  I'll have to see how I feel when the class is over and an empty drawing sits in my room.

Practice 36: Thursday (11/18)

4,223 dots - 20 minutes and 10 seconds

For the past 35 practices, I've used an alarm on my phone to alert me when  the practice was over.  I started to know where the half way mark was just by gut feeling--sometimes I would even check the timer to find that I was only 30 or so seconds off.  Today, I made a playlist in itunes that was 20 minutes and 10 seconds long.  When the songs stopped playing, I stop dotting.  I put on music that I like, so I'd be more prone to distractions.  Surprisingly, I was more motivated to dot faster.  I actually felt less distracted with the music playing.  However, I feel like I over-thought how many dots should be in each song... I'll try this another week to see if anything changes. 

Practice 37: Friday (11/20)

3, 784 dots - 20 minutes

I was very hungry while I did today's practice, and I was surprised how much it threw me off.  The dot number was fairly high because I was working on a concentrated area of dots, not because I was paying great attention / in the zone.  I've found that tiredness also adversely affects my attention to the project and I become much more likely to forget or repeat numbers.  It's also much easier to get frustrated when I'm physically uncomfortable in some way.  I get upset at the tangents, where as in many of my other daily practices, I'm able to brush it off. 

Practice 38:  Sunday (11/22) 

1,934 dots - 10 minutes

I've attempted to go home early this week for break.  By going out of my way to have a longer and hopefully more relaxing vacation, I've jinxed myself.  Never plan to relax.  Fun and relaxation doesn't work that way, and if you try to make it work that way, it will always blown up in your face.  I've been decimated by obnoxious  bullshit in preparation for trying to leave.  I have to do so many awkwardly timed things that I can't really getting anything done--and most of my time is spent waiting around trying to do something rather than actually doing it.  I will fail to successfully prepare for going home, even if I had the next 48 hours to sit down and work.  I will now worry over the entire break about the shit I need to do, thus, ruing my break.  I had to cut this practice in half so my head could shut off.  I have no doubt that the number of dots I counted tonight was entirely inaccurate.  It's 1:50 AM, and I will not fall asleep for another two hours.  Which will prevent me from actually starting the rest of my obnoxious bullshit for tomorrow until like-- noon.  There's just too many people with too many expectations.  I can barely stand my own expectations.  Now that I've blown up on this blog entry, I'm going to go blast some mid-90s Weezer and try to rock and roll myself to sleep. 

Total dots:  146,100