Good morning! And good Monday to you.
I love Mondays. They’re a fresh start kind of day. I like to check in with the week ahead and get a feel for what project work is needed (publishing and illustration), whether there are any work meetings coming up, whether the kids have any appointments, whether I have any non-work things, and so on.
I start most weeks with an overall things to finish this week. Sometimes that’s a whole smaller project (or even a handful of smaller projects), but usually it’s elements of bigger projects (and if I have an ongoing project management job going on, there will be distinct project management tasks most days, too). Then I’ll split the tasks out roughly so that they’re reasonably evenly balanced and, ideally, fall within a working day (that doesn’t always work, though, and sometimes things have to go in the evening or early mornings and into the weekends – that feels inevitable with freelancing, which both my work hats are.
I like to weave illustration and (non-creative) publishing* work into my daily and weekly tasks. When I have tried to have a full day, or two, for illustration or design work, I’ve found it very difficult to get stuck in, and have ended up treating them like days off. But when I weave them together, I can trick (or train?) my brain into recognising that there is ‘WORK’ to be done for the illustration and design business, too. It’s not all just drawing whatever you want whenever you want. Sadly.
So, including in this week’s tasks, are:
draw a bunch of food and cooking implements for an illustrated recipe project
finish colouring at least three more women and cats (and maybe rethink the colour palette)
flesh out briefs for SVG/PNG packs
email 5 art directors or similar with pitches/work samples
do course homework.
How’s your week looking?
* I use publishing work to mean the non-illustrative work, even though my illustration work is often publishing work, too. Yes, it’s confusing.