Health Issues Relating to Drawing.

Paying attention to your body so you can pay more attention to your art.

Health related issues are a serious matter when it comes to us artist. Something was tweaked in your lower back or perhaps you have a tingling sensation in your fingers. This is truly nothing to ignore. Especially when most artists live a sedentary lifestyle.

Hunters And Gatherers

If you are considering earning a living as a digital painter, animator, fine artist, illustrator or cartoonist you must be informed on more than pencils and paint. These disciplines require that you sit for extended periods of time either in front of an easel or a computer. Humans were not made to sit for long periods of time. We are truly hunters and gatherers needing to move our bodies. That is the way we were designed. It’s in all of our genetics. However when you combine artists working under the pressures of deadlines sitting for long periods of time, problems slowly start to infest your body. It’s not like getting into a car accident or a fall were as one second you are fine and the next you are really hurt due to trauma. I mean you create the aliments gradually in your body by doing tasks that require repetitive motion.

These so called repetitive motion tasks can become a serious health issue. Most people think of someone working on an assembly line in a factory doing repetitive motion tasks. They do and so do artists. Moving your hand from the easel to the palette hundreds of times a day while painting for eight hours is just like working in a factory. Working on a cintiq doing digital painting only moves your shoulder joint in a limited repetitive way which is very bad over time. In this article I will make you aware of the hazards mainly associated with the muscular skeletal system. Trust me there are many. I will then lay out some simple exercises you should do to prevent these problems from ever happening in the first place.

Here is a quick tip that will help you immediately.

Never sit down in a chair working on a drawing or in front of the computer for longer than 40 minutes. Anything longer than 40 – 45 minutes is just not good for your posture. You want to get up after 40 minutes and stretch. Ask yourself the question, how many times did you lift your hands over your head today or this week? Most likely you didn’t. Get up and move, rotate your shoulders, rotate and move your limbs, do some stretching. This is a very good simple and effective preventative measure that you can do with ease. Set a timer, or set your ipod to play a song list that goes 40 minutes. Again remember, we humans were built to move, not to sit.

As a side note getting up to look at your artwork at a distance is a good thing. So you can stretch while you are getting a different view of your art. That’s what I do.

Thanks for Reading!

Health Issues and the Visual Artist

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