SO after watching this video [link] I picked up a book from my local bookstore called Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell. The book essentially looks at various people in the world who are considered successful or talented, and suggests reasons as to why these people are so good at what they do. One chapter that has so far interested me the most is one that suggests the 10,000 hour rule.

In the book, the 10,000 hour rule is described as "in order to become truly good or master a skill requires at least 10,000 hours of deliberate practice." That number doesn't sound like a lot when you first hear it but to put things into perspective 10,000 hours amounts to 3 hours practice a day for 10 years. That sounds like a lot of work but when I think about it, it makes a lot of sense.

In the book, the author describes and gives the results of a study done on music students at an academy in Berlin who all play the violin. The students were split into 3 groups, students who were of extremely high level and would eventually go on to be world class soloists, students who were deemed very good and students who were deemed to have an average sort of level. The students in the first group were calculated to have done no less than 10,000 hours practice over the course of them playing the violin, the second group around 8000 hours and the third group around 5000 hours.

Another example is one I've witnessed in real life. As a hobby I do Archery with a club at my university. When I first joined there was a guy there who was extremely good and often got the highest score n the club. In a inter university competition, out of a total of 600 points he got 585 (he also won). When I asked him how long he'd been shooting for he said he'd been involved in the sport since he was about 5, at the time he was 21 years old.
I see it a lot in art as well. Most of the artists, whose work I follow, have been drawing for over 5 years. Some of them have even graduated from colleges and pursue art as a full time career.

Art for me is something I have always wanted to pursue and improve at. It's not my major ambition per say but it is definitely something I've wanted to become good at. Over the years I've made many attempts at getting into artwork, but for various reasons ended up stopping. However, despite now being 21, I am going to try again and get into artwork. After reading some of the book I've mentioned I am going to to try and put in about 2 hours practice a day (I can manage it with my current schedule) and write a sort of diary about my progress on deviantart. I've even invested in some art lessons (just beginner ones mind you). So yeah, I'm determined as to not simply stop practicing and to keep drawing. It will be probably be a few years before I get anywhere near the level of quality of some of my favourite artists but you have to start somewhere.

EDIT: You know considering my inactivity on this account I really wonder if anyone is actually going to read this journal. Ah well no harm in posting it anyway.