So, I stumbled upon this thing called ‘jiyai shin’ a while back. Saw some folks talking about it, looked kinda neat, thought I’d give it a try myself. Didn’t really dig into the name or anything, just saw the results and figured, why not?
Getting Started
First thing I did was dig out my old notebook. You know, the one that sits on the shelf looking important but mostly just gathers dust. Grabbed a standard pen too, nothing fancy. Didn’t want to make a big production out of it. Just sat down at my desk, cleared some space.
The whole idea, from what I gathered, was about keeping things simple. Like, really simple. Focusing on the core of something, not getting bogged down in tiny details. Sounded easy enough, right? Well…
The Actual Process
I decided to try it on a little project I had floating around. Just a simple concept, needed to outline some basic shapes. Started putting pen to paper. Tried to follow that ‘jiyai shin’ approach – just get the essence down.
It felt weird at first. My hand wanted to add more detail, to refine the lines, but I kept telling myself, ‘nope, keep it basic’. Fought the urge to fiddle too much. The first few attempts were… rough. Really rough. Like, ‘what even is that?’ rough.
Here’s what I noticed though:
- It forced me to think differently about the structure.
- I had to decide much earlier what was truly important.
- There was less erasing and rethinking, more just moving forward.
Honestly, it reminded me of something my grandfather used to say about woodworking: measure twice, cut once. Except here it was more like: think hard, draw fast. Don’t overthink the drawing part, but make sure the thinking part happened first.
Did It Work?
Well, the results weren’t exactly masterpieces. Not gonna lie. Looked a bit stark, maybe even unfinished to some eyes. But that wasn’t really the point, was it? The goal was to try this ‘jiyai shin’ method.
And I did. I followed the steps I understood. I put the pen down, looked at what I had. It was… basic. But it captured the core idea I was going for. Surprisingly quickly, actually. Saved me a lot of the usual back-and-forth I get stuck in sometimes.
So, yeah. I tried it. It’s definitely a different way of working. Forces you to be decisive. Not sure if I’ll use it all the time, feels a bit restrictive for some things. But for quickly capturing an idea, getting something down without fuss? Yeah, I can see myself pulling this technique out again. It’s another tool in the toolbox, I guess. Nothing revolutionary, but practical in its own way. Worth the experiment.
