Seven Little Things.

Coffee, Sunday?

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:

1. Wave

2. Watch

3. Volcano

4. Socks

5. Fountain

6. Dog Fight

7. Spaceman

use the hashtag #sevennlittlethingsillustration and tag me on socials if you post there.

Instructions:

1. Have a list of items, or use mine.

2. Block out creative time, and allocate enough time for each drawing. (this could be 7 one-minute drawings or 7 one-hour drawings)

3. Collect references in advance.

4. Schedule Posts with the hashtag for the rest of the week

I hope you’ll try it!

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Now here are some Links to Things

Mostly to do with publishing and promotion.

1. 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.

2. Substack Writers
   wrote an interesting post about book promotion.

3. And speaking of book promotion, a book I illustrated got published this week!

4. And here’s a Note about how to promote your substack!

5. My Agent Lydia Silver, did an AMA on twitter and there’s a lot of insider info to glean from there.

6. Pencil Pals
   answered my question about doing samples

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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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As ever I treasure your comments, please share your thoughts on anything I’ve written. Or just ask a question about anything :)

1. 7 benefits of posting on social media daily