I hate repetition. I get bored easily if I have to do the same thing over and over again. I have NEVER managed to stick to a 100 day project.
And yet…. I loved doing A to Z projects a couple of years back, completing three of them.
The one below I didn’t complete, because I suddenly had two books to illustrate at once, alongside an existing proofreading commitment. And, of course, I’d upped the requirements, by making myself draw a whole bunch of things beginning with the letter, rather than picking just one. That said, it was still super quick, because it was fountain pen in sketchbook, quick photo and bump up the contrast and then dropping a tiny bit of JUST ONE colour in.
It never took more than half an hour.
I think it was a mistake to stop it just because I was super busy with client work. If you get a good daily drawing (or writing or whatever your daily practice is) practice in, it won’t take up a huge amount of time and you should fit it in, regardless of other commitments.
I have found myself sinking back into the infinite scroll habit in the mornings, since school and college terms have started back up. I did miss the sofa time in the holidays, as I tended to just go straight to my desk. But this September, I haven’t quite found my sofa time rhythm and I really want to throw some creativity into it.
When I was on my 5-week interrailing trip earlier in the year and also during the long summer holidays, I found myself craving some kind of routine. What tends to happen is I then make plans and timetables to schedule my every five minutes and I FAIL.
But a simple morning routine that includes a half hour of drawing or writing (or both, a half hour fore each…. there I go, trying to squeeze more in) I think would be really beneficial, especially at times like now when none of my client work involves drawing (it’s all project managing, development editing and typesetting/digital building at the moment), but not just then. Because illustration work is still separate to a daily practice or sketchbook habit - I think you need the latter even when you’re drawing all day, because that’s where you find a new direction or practise some of the elements of your craft that aren’t in the current client work.
I’m not sure I want to do Inktober, but I think I will set 1 October as a start date for some fun and beneficial routines - the kind that can be embedded for a long time, and that I won’t give up on within a week or two. I will set 30 minutes every morning to draw and write and I will share it here (here being my Substack newsletter). Even if it’s awful.
Anyone else looking to introduce some daily practice and routines? Are you going to do Inktober or some other October challenge?