A Case for a Daily Practice.

And a check in/nudge/reminder to do this week’s sketchbook project.

From my personal sketchbook comic practice.

More information is created and stored through practice that language.

The things I’ve learned from the practice of drawing boxes.

By drawing the same 4 panels a 100 times, I end up thinking about the pros and cons of drawing the boxes with a ruler vs freehand.

The rule I made for myself is that the bottom line of the left page and the top line of the right page should be straight. This will allow me to combine them by stacking to present as a vertical format.

And if I’m going to make one straight line.

I can make all the lines straight. And if the plan is to combine them then the height and widths need to be standardised. And if it’s to be standardised, I now get to pick the exact lengths of the sizes.

And since I can pick, I’m going to use the golden ratio to pick the most beautiful ratio.

This leaves me space above and below which I can use for titles and notes.

And this is what I’ve learned from drawing 4 boxes for a couple of weeks to fill with comics.

I also learned that the division lines within the box doesn’t need to line up or be measured to make for good reading, so I can slide that left to right or add further divisions as needed.

I’ve learned a lot more that that, so much that I can’t write it all down, or even think of it. But I know that when I sit down to draw a box I do so with the experience of having drawn thousands of boxes.

I have specific knowledge.

Thing’s I’ve learned just from drawing this quick strip.

PANEL 1: Because I’ve drawn myself and my glasses so many times, today I thought I need to really think about how I want to draw glasses.

So I took a good look at my glasses (the first time I’ve ever done that), and I drew them in 3 lines. Moving forward, I have a system for drawing my glasses using 3 lines. ¹

This knowledge is going to serve me every time I draw myself, but it’s also a specific knowledge that I can apply to my professional work.

PANEL 2: In drawing hands, here I realised that instead of putting lines down on paper, I should first imagine what I’m going to draw. Fixing it in my imagination. Before bringing it to the page. It will take more practice to do this regularly, but just like that I’ve added a new dimension to my process. Like a new feature in the drawing software in my brain

‘DRAWING SOFTWARE!’ What a term! That’s what we’re doing here by sketching daily, we’re developing our drawing software and all its tools.

PANEL 3 and 4: In panel 3 and 4 I get to apply the idea that I got about imagining the hands before drawing them.

I might be better at noticing what I’m learning in each sketchbook session, maybe because I write about it. But I want to tell you that you are learning so much in each 10 minute session probably much more than I am, so keep practicing and developing your drawing software!

This week’s project

The main reason I’m writing is to check in.

If you’ve fallen off it’s okay get back at it.

If you haven’t started it’s okay you can start now.

This week’s exercise is really useful to turn into a longer practice because having a consistent format anchors your learning. I’m enjoying watching all the pictures being shared in the gallery.

If you share it online use #TenMinuteArtist so we can see each other’s work.

Links:

Here is the link to this week’s project is you want to start now.

This is the link to the gallery.

And there’s an upcoming workshop on faces for paid subscribers here.

1. See the simplification Project