Recently I attended a life-sketching class, and my instructor said something that really stuck. It was simple – meant for the room – but the more I sat with it, the more it started applying to… everything.
“When you sketch someone, imagine they’re trapped inside a giant block of ice. Your job is to chainsaw them out.”
That visual changed how I work. Some people go straight for the face – free the eyes, then the nose, then the lips – making big cuts, then smaller, then tiny precise ones. They might spend hours on the face, making sure every detail is perfect before moving on to the next part of the body they want to thaw. That can work. But I think there’s a more reliable way.
Start with the biggest chops. Early on, big cuts are safe – you’re not going to slice off the person’s nose by trimming the overall silhouette. With those big chops, you identify the overall shape the sketch will take. Making smaller, precise cuts requires more expertise, so we can build up to them.
In the end, the quality and realism depend on how small you can make your cuts without losing the big shape. Experienced artists can push to “layer 10 or 12” – super-fine decisions – because they’ve already locked the fundamentals. Beginners often stall after the opening chops because tiny cuts require two things: confident structure and trained judgment. When we’re new at sketching, we’re cautious about how we move the pencil – we worry we’ll mess things up. And that’s perfectly natural haha.
Honestly, this maps to skill-building in general. When we’re new, we’re bolder with big, safe moves and hesitant with the fine ones. As we explore and learn the craft, we get comfortable making smaller, higher-leverage edits – the kind that define things without overworking them. There’s no finish line here. The goal is to keep reducing cut size while still making progress – minimal moves, maximum clarity.
Call it Solo Leveling if you want. I see plenty of places in my own life where I’m stuck at the “learning part,” and this is my reminder: start with big chops, then keep earning the right to go smaller. Level up!
There’s actually a real term for this (which is very cool)
Artists already have names for this idea:
- Block-in / Lay-in – start with the biggest shapes before any detail.
- Envelope method – rough outer “wrapper” first, then refine inside (I think this is what my instructor mentioned in class).
- Coarse-to-fine – the general learning/process term for progressive refinement.
Basically: the “chainsaw → scalpel” path is a legit, teachable method – not just a shower thought.
That’s cool – what’s next? (a tiny challenge)
Pick one thing today – sketching, writing, coding, piano.
Give yourself 20 minutes.
No polishing early. Start with the biggest chops. Repeating the process again and again builds the confidence to get comfortable with those smaller cuts. The idea is simple: begin with the bigger, easier cuts, keep learning, then make the smaller ones.
Start bold. Earn precision. Keep leveling up!
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