Challenging Myself to Draw

Momentum Monday issue 002

The first Monday of October. For some of us we’ve got the momentum of starting a drawing challenge like wind in our sales. For others it’s wait what, it’s OCTOBER! It’s time to grapple once again with the joy and pain of drawing challenges, there is pain if you’re participating. And that special pain if you’re not called POMO, yup, pain of missing out!

In today’s Newsletter:

1. How I’m challenging myself this October, including 3 top tips to deal with drawing challenges. (Notes from Tom’s Class)

2. In case you missed it: links to useful posts from the past.

3. Why bother with Drawing Challenges.

4. 🍿 My plan for keeping a daily sketchbook practice

My own plan for October is to continue working on 100 Days of Drawing icons but instead of working digitally I’m going to do it in a small sketchbook. I just did Tom Frose’s class called Drawing is Important . And it’s given me some structure to thinking about how to approach a daily drawing project.

💎 Here are a few notes I took from class:

1. Small and consistent effort always outpaces impressive but inconsistent efforts over time.

2. One way to overcome ‘Drawers Block’ is always knowing what to draw in a given moment.

3. Have a written plan and return to it every time you get stuck

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In case you missed it:

1. Last week I wrote a short post about the 30 month journey from wondering:“How do I get my work in front of an art director?” to “It’s a good fit, I’ll share it with the team, stay in touch!”

2. There’s also a discussion about how some of us kick start our work day

3. And here’s a video of how I use characters from character sheets to create a spread for a chapterbook.

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Why Bother with Drawing Challenges?

Jennifer Jamieson writes a terrific posts about art challenges. I’m a huge fan of Jennifer’s work which I think of deceptively simple looking on the surface but filled with depth. In her post, she write about how to pick a drawing challenge and how to get the most out of it.

Why should I bother with art challenges?

In the comments,

I’d love if you shared any of the work from a drawing challenge you are working on, I’d love to come take a look!

I’d also love to hear about what you get out of doing drawing challenges, and how you make time to do them!

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🍿 Lastly here’s a little extra for paid subscribers:

My handwritten plan for keeping a daily sketchbook, it’s important to remind myself what I’m supposed to be doing, and more importantly, why!

If you’re getting off here, let me just quickly say, Have a great week! 🚋