I’m looking for ideas for a comic.
To that end I tried this free drawing exercise.
Drawing Exercise:
Set a timer and draw continuously until the timer stops.
This is what I drew.
What if I repeated the exercise everyday?
Some of it is nonsense and some of it is ideas I could use for a comic.
Jen Gubicza asked, What if I repeated the exercise everyday?
And it haven’t even occurred to me todo that!
My goal is to come up with ideas for comics, yet when I found a way to do that that was joyous and easy, instead of trying to make it a habit, I was ready to move on.
My wife was reading this thing that said, instead of looking for novelty, consider looking for nuance. That’s something a daily practice could offer.
I’ve done this exercise 3 days in a row now. And I can tell you it really excites me to spend the time sketching… I really don’t know what might emerge. And I’m generating more new ideas daily. Ideas that could fill pages. When you can fill enough pages, well that’s a book right?
The thing that is important about a your daily practice is it has to be something that works for you. I did 3 different exercises for generating ideas when faced with a blank page, but it was this particular one that worked for me.
One of the blind spots of most people, ESPECIALLY creative people is they keep looking for new ways to do things. Maybe sometimes, it’s better to do what works again and again.
Do you try things then move on or do you mine for gold once you’ve found it?
What are some process that you’ve stuck too?
What have you moved away from maybe too soon?
In 2019 there was a whole year where for three days a week I would go to a shopping centre, drink coffee and eat 3 nuggets at Burger King and draw people for 1-2 hours with a liner. That was so satisfying and I saw so many interesting characters. But I realised I could not really fit them anywhere in my portfolio or art so I started skipping days. Then covid changed the game. I recently thought about starting again but in a format of a drawing group. But I feel like I am stopped by the experience being covid-risky and not being.. fancy enough?. 😂