Iteration
“a procedure in which repetition of a sequence of operations yields results successively closer to a desired result.” Merriam Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary
If I would have known about iteration when I was struggling over story problems in elementary school, I might have enjoyed working with numbers. I listened to Tyler Jarvis on a BYU devotional talk about iteration in math. You think of an approximate answer and then work to prove it. You then use that answer to work on another better answer and so on moving towards a more better answer such as my use of more better English.
Thats how I work with art and illustration: the idea pops into my head and I try to get it down on paper. I then use that rough sketch to improve upon the first idea and do this over and over again until I arrive at a solution to my problem. It takes some observation, thinking and revising to arrive at that answer. At this point it is nice to run it past others who can look at the art with a fresh eye. They may see some things that you haven’t noticed.
Life is a bit like that. We struggle through doing the best we can with an approximate answer to what we need to do and be and then we observe, and think and revise and try to do better. Iteration.
Come to think of it, iteration got me into trouble with grade school math. My answers were always my best guess.