Christian Major

No more 10,000 hours!! November 8, 2009

I am very excited about some new things going on and I wanted to share. This blog post is a little long and it’s all about me, but my hope is that realizing these things about myself will give me the ability to give a greater service to you the reader. Please bear with me. You might enjoy this story.

I have had to step up my game lately. The 10,000 hours project you have been reading about has taught me a huge lesson.

That lesson is this: I can’t do it the way I’ve been doing it.

In the previous posts for 10,000 hours,[a quest to spend as much time as possible focused on art] I was doing all that while working at least 50 to 60 hours a week. I have medical bills to pay, a wife to support, pets to feed, and I want to get the occasional starbucks.

At the same time I love art! I moved to Southern Pines to pursue my art career! It was supposed to work so perfectly! When it turned out less than perfect, I pushed harder. I can do both I thought. I can work more than full time and let art and drawing fill in any little gap of spare time. I had to. We only get one life and we must make the most of it.

But, I missed a key component of my “10,000 hours program” …..

I’m already there. I’m already finished. I’m ready to move on, and it’s not with art.

Don’t get me wrong, I love great art with a passion and I still plan on spending lots of time working on that skill, but that is not what I have already worked 10,000 hours to get started.

To tell you what it is, I need to start from the beginning.

It starts at church, after the sermon. I’m 5 years old and singing “I heard it through the grape vine” through the microphone up on stage.

It starts at church during a sermon. I’m 7 years old and I draw the scene of the crucifixion. Not too bad for a seven year old.

It starts in a mango tree in Bolivia. I am 9 years old and reading. I’m reading for hours and hours. I read anything I can get my hands on. I read Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew, C.S. Lewis and J.R.R Tolkien, books about dinosaurs, planes, space, the ocean, the jungle. I read “Choose Your Own Adventure” stories. I read anything and everything!

It starts while I’m sitting at the computer. I’m 10 years old and I need to learn MSDOS to be able to play the fun games.

It starts in a smokey guitar shop. I am 15 years old and flat-picking “Sailor’s Hornpipe” on the guitar. I go from learning folk/blue grass to rock and roll to classical guitar in my first year of college.

It starts in the highschool library. I’m 16 and a friend explains HTML programing to me. It seems pretty straight forward.

It starts on the highschool auditorium stage. I’m 17 and I have a great speaking role as Doc in “Westside Story.”

It starts on a 747. I’m 19 and discover a love for travel when I spend a couple weeks on my own backpacking through London, Edinborough and Oxford. I want to go back soon.

It starts at community college. I’m 21 and a professor offers me a position teaching CorelDraw, Adobe Photoshop, and Adobe Illustrator. I didn’t take it, I moved on.

It starts at Barnes and Nobles. I’m 22 and the couches are a poor replacement for a mango tree, but I read. I read all the business books, all the finance and stock market books, all the self help books,  My role models other than my dad became John Maxwell, David Allen, Brian Tracy, Stephen Covey and Napoleon Hill

It starts at NC State University. I’m 24 and a college graduate. They let me piece together my design, programming, communication, art history, and music classes to form a degree called “Arts Applications”. If NCSU had considered my Barnes and Noble education, I wouldn’t have been too far from an MBA.

It starts at work. I’m 26, a couple years out of college and I feel like a square peg. What am I supposed to do now? I plan out my next 5 years and see myself in art school under the best artists. In retrospect I see now that I have a strong desire to plan things out and make things better.

It starts at a wedding. I’m 27 and my beautiful bride is walking the aisle on green grass. I have to take care of two now.

It starts in a doctors office in June. I am 28 and I had just been through two major surgeries in 4 months dealing with testicular cancer and not knowing what is coming next. I have just been told I am completely cancer free! I sit outside on a bench alone and rejoice in the grace that has brought me through these 28 years.

This is me. This is my 10,000 hours. This is my education. I have pursued all my interests with resolute dedication.

I am moving into a new season. Thanks to a couple of good friends here in Southern Pines I have an office, a phone line, a computer and an opportunity to develop a business and develop businesses. I am absolutely thrilled about this because all business is is people serving people. And to serve and help others to serve better and more effectively is an exciting thing!

You might ask what I do. The story I just told will help explain, it’s not what I do, but how I do it.

290 Hours, Hibernation and Personality Types November 1, 2009

Good news! I recently found out I’m not a flake. I never thought I was, but certain aspects of myself have frustrated me in that I work really hard at something and then taper off. Then I work really hard at something and then taper off.

What I found out was that this is part of my personality. I am an INFJ personality type.  If you follow the link, go half way down the page for an excellent description of some of the things that I have been confused about about myself. You don’t know what a relief it is to find out that atleast 2% – 3% of the population is similar in some ways to me.

Anyways, all that is to say, I am in art hibernation. Apparently, I have been in blog hibernation too, but new things are coming up that I want to write about so I needed to get this article out of the way.

More to come…

215 Hours and Coldplay August 10, 2009

I don’t really have anyhting to show for this week other than to say I am 32 hours further in.  I should have a nice Bargue drawing to post for you by next week.

Meanwhile I got to go see Coldplay on Friday in Charlotte! Here is a very nice video of them singing Michael Jackson’s “Billie Jean”

Until next time…

183 hours and a Michelangelo Overlay August 3, 2009

I finished the main lessons in “The Structure of Man” Series. I have memorized the basics of the skeleton and the muscles and their proportions.

(more…)

151 hours and How To Draw Comics the Marvel Way July 27, 2009

When I was 12 I saved up my money for a book first published in 1978, How to Draw Comics the Marvel Way.

I read through it, liked it, was interested in learning what it was trying to teach but in the end I got very little out of it.   (more…)

119 Hours and a Major Milestone July 21, 2009

I went to bed Saturday with a sigh. I wasn’t going to make thirty-two hours for the week. I had to flip around my sleep schedule one too many times and I still had nine hours left to go. (more…)

96 Hours and a Nice Beach Weekend July 13, 2009

It was a nice week for my 32 hours. I wasn’t sure I was going to be able to fit it in. But, I took an old laptop along with us and drew along to “The Structure of Man” whenever the opportunity came up. (more…)

Mari is amazing! July 7, 2009

I wanted to share with you a portrait that my friend Mari is working on. Mari is a teacher/student at Mims Studios and has given me several wonderful critiques. I hope to get many more when I make it back to school.

This portrait is an amazing example of balancing what you can see and what you know to create art.

So many ideas about what I’ve learned so far come to mind. But mostly I just find this portrait inspiring.

Check it out.
This is her blog.
This is the portrait.

64 Hours and Two Rolls of Tin Foil July 6, 2009

It’s been a great week here in Southern Pines. I only have one page left in my bridgeman book to copy. And, I worked quite a bit on the bargue foot drawing. (still a ways to go on that one) (more…)

Keegan Dewitt has good tunes. July 1, 2009

Keegan Dewitt got me into the groove of drawing last night.

You can stream some of his music from keegandewitt.com

Or you can download one of his songs for free here:

http://keegandewitt.com/wildheart.mp3