This week I put a teaspoon of butter in my coffee. I saw some cafes offer that so I thought I’d try it myself. Oh, and there’s no paywall today. Happy Mother’s Day!
Today I’m going to talk about one idea, then share a bunch of useful links I found this week.
Here’s the idea:
“If I make 7-Little things on Sunday,
then I’ll have something to post on social media every day.
It’s challenging to make a living as a professional footballer or an artist. And the reason is that more people want those jobs than there is a demand for them. So there’s competition. But one of the opportunities available to the artist is to post on social media daily.1
I’m always in awe and maybe a little jealous of the artist who manages to post on social media regularly while working on amazing projects. I think showing up daily is a demonstration of personal success and dependability.
But how to get that consistency? It’s a question I’ve asked myself all year. I’ve tried ABC projects and 100-day projects, but I never seem to get further than a week before dropping out.
This week I’m trying something different, it’s called “Seven Little Things”, the idea is to make 7 illustrations on Sunday, and post them throughout the week. If you’d like to play along, here’s a list of prompts. Or you can make up your own things. Maybe we can give each other some motivation as we pursue this goal together.
Prompts:
Wave
Watch
Volcano
Socks
Fountain
Dog Fight
Spaceman
use the hashtag #sevennlittlethingsillustration and tag me on socials if you post there.
Instructions:
Have a list of items, or use mine.
Block out creative time, and allocate enough time for each drawing. (this could be 7 one-minute drawings or 7 one-hour drawings)
Collect references in advance.
Schedule Posts with the hashtag for the rest of the week
I hope you’ll try it!
Now here are some Links to Things
Mostly to do with publishing and promotion.
I’ve created a separate section on my substack called the illustration blog. Generally, I don’t send these blogs out as emails, they are the edited archives and notes for myself, but you’re welcome to take a look.
- wrote an interesting post about book promotion.
And speaking of book promotion, a book I illustrated got published this week!
And here’s a Note about how to promote your substack!
My Agent Lydia Silver, did an AMA on twitter and there’s a lot of insider info to glean from there.
- answered my question about doing samples
This volcano is one of the illustrations I did for my seven little things. Next week I’ll write about the experience and what I learned from my Seven Little things project as well as a new set of prompts.
Thank you for reading!
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I am baffled: "But how to get that consistency? [...] I never seem to get further than a week before dropping out."
Aren't you the same Adam Ming that managed to send a DAILY newsletter?! I am following you/reading your newsletter for quite a time now (i really like it very much!) and have aways been impressed, how you follow through on posting/writing regularly!
So maybe i find a bit of a relief in the fact that even Adam does not always know how to stick to a routine :-)
But you are sticking to working it out. For me, you are kind of a prof researcher in doing this illuatration thing - and you let us particpate in your trials and findings. I think that's beautiful.
Posting my art regularly to Instagram is something I really struggle with. I’ve tried to batch create ahead of time but I find the inspiration just doesn’t strike or that it all looks the same. Any tips on creating ahead of time in batches in a way that you have variety? (Batch writing works for me with my writing but not my art!)