Day 2: What did you do yesterday?
Time as a Filter — learn to filter and pick your moments of interest.
Yesterday I introduced you to the Ten Minute Visual Journal Method. Did you try it for yourself?
If you haven’t, start at Day 1
If you’re still reading I’m assuming you did the exercise maybe for the first time.
What I love about this practice is that it’s infinitely repeatable. You can answer the same questions every day, but you will always find different answers. Or different ways to draw the same answers.
I encourage you to try repeating the practice for 5 days and see how it evolves.
I hope the first day showed you how potent a single ten minute session can be to bring up images that are completely personal in origin, over the next few days I want to show you some ways to get even more out of every panel.
“What did you do yesterday?”
Is the easiest question to start with, because the potential answers are limited.
They are limited to what you actually did, what you remember doing, and what interests you the most at this moment. A day creates some distance from the activity itself, so while it’s close enough to remember, we view yesterday with a bit more objectivity.
Time becomes a filter, and only the most important and interesting things come up for consideration.
Another thing that happens when you start answering this question every day is that you start to pay more attention to your actions in daily life. Partially to find something worth drawing, but another surprising thing it does, is it makes you want to try to do more interesting things.
Asking and answering this questions, creating a sequence of images day after day makes you more interested in your days and more interesting.
Probing questions
If for whatever reason you feel stumped with the ‘yesterday’ question.
You could consider, adding some probing questions.
What did I do at a specific time?
What was the first thing I did yesterday?
What was the last thing I did yesterday?
What was the most creative thing I did yesterday?
What was the most physical thing I did yesterday?
What was the funniest thing I did yesterday?
Feel free to play with the question, but keep to the core purpose of filtering your day for one precious nugget to draw.
Drawing Style
You are spending less than 3 minutes on each drawing, so we’re not exactly making art here, as much as we are capturing images. Still one of the benefits of the repetition is to try different ways and almost effortlessly something like a style will emerge.
But one thing you can do that can have a big effect from day to day is try different materials, or use the materials differently.
Approach each day playfully, this is your time to play.
Time to Draw!
Okay I’ve given you some things to think about as you continue to try out this practice, go ahead and create another spread using the Ten Minute Visual Journal Method.
And I’ll see you in Day 3!
PS: The Check-ins
Each day we’ll explore one of the questions in a little more depth as we try to layer more and more potency into your ten minutes of practice. I’ll also send it to you once a day over the next 4 days.
Day 1: The Visual Journal Method
Day 2: Time as a Filter — learn to filter and pick your moments of interest.
Day 3: Present Focus — all work is aspirational
Day 4: Vision — vision drives reality
Day 5: Gratitude — your most creative state
Ten Minute Artist gives you a Gameplan to build a lifelong creative habit and attract your true fans - I’m also involved in these two other substacks:
Art Gym with Katie Stack is a monthly skill building workshop with a huge library
Art Quest with Jen Gubicza is and ongoing adventure party writing picturebooks together.