June | 2012 | Perpetual Student

I find it difficult to contemplate learning in a group, or in a classroom.

I don’t know where this reaction comes from, but I can say without hesitation that I’ve always treasured the time I spend reading on my own, and pondering new ideas.

Why do I enjoy self-learning?

I think that deep inside, I’m a fairly solitary person, with a strong sense of self-reliance, personal pride and curiosity. Something in my gut may compel me to feel that other people actually get in the way between me and the information I want.

However, I’m not a hermit or a recluse. I like to communicate with others, but it seems that communicating on my own schedule or terms (i.e. asynchronously) seems to suit me the best.

An irony of this “lone learner” ethos is that once I have achieved something from my own investigations, I feel a strong need to share it with others.

Famous Self-Taught People

This page lists famous Self-Taught People through history, including such luminaries as Albert Einstein, Mark Twain, Alexander Graham Bell and Charles Dickens, through to modern influential thinkers and business people.
https://notendur.hi.is/joner/eaps/tn_FAMOUS_SELF_TAUGHT_PEOPLE.htm

Wikipedia’s article on Autodidacticism gives a good overview of the meaning and impact of self-learning in different disciplines, and its development through the industrial ages.

Over the years, I’ve always had a pile of half-empty sketchbooks to work in, with various types of paper, sizes or formats.

Over the years, whenever I needed to, I’d pull a sketchbook out from my pile, and draw in it for a page or two to help solidify an idea, play with a new pen or less often, sketch some person, scene or object in front of me. Sometimes I’ve kept a sketchbook in my desk at work, to help me work out a visual design idea.

But in recent years, I haven’t sketched nearly as much as I used to back when I was an art student, or back in the early days of my career.

Recently, I’ve felt the need, and have begun sketching again. This time though, in addition to pens and pencils, my sketching media include smart phones and tablet computers.

Check out this gallery of sketches in traditional and digital media:

Click image to view this gallery:

Media Used

Brush-pen (ie. pen and ink) on paper
Smart phones (Treo 650 and Blackberry Torch)
Blackberry Playbook tablet

Perpetual Student

Monthly Archives: June 2012

On Self-Learning: Why I Like it

I find it difficult to contemplate learning in a group, or in a classroom.

Why do I enjoy self-learning?

Famous Self-Taught People

Explorations in Drawing: Old-school and Digital Tools

Over the years, I’ve always had a pile of half-empty sketchbooks to work in, with various types of paper, sizes or formats.

Media Used

Explorations in learning, ideas, and design by E. John Love