Healthy Habits for Artists
What works for you?
Dear Reader,
I loved seeing so many of you doing the weekly practice. The value of doing something like this on a regular basis, is habit forming. The more drawing is part of your day/week, the easier starting to draw will be.
When it comes to me, I try to draw everyday but to take the pressure off I think about it as #sketchnearlyeveryday.
Often we have to trick the mind since waiting for inspiration doesn’t work reliably.
There is a bunch of stuff that I do either intentionally or subconsciously to keep drawing and finding ideas easy. These I would like to share with you as suggestions to maybe try and see if they work for you.
Once you form a habit you don’t have to expend as much mental energy on starting.
Healthy Habits for Artists: Collect Photos
Take photos/screenshots of things you find pretty/appealing. They will be your references you own and can use for illustrations.
In spring I try to take lots of photos of the new early blooming plants. These buttercups are everywhere at the moment in Hamburg and I love seeing those carpets dotted with yellow! On my phone I have a folder where I collect the good ref pics and when I need inspiration I consult this folder and I often find something that sparks an idea.
What Healthy Habits have you developed?
I’d love to learn from you about your habits that you have implemented in your life. I have such fun in finding new things that work. <3
Weekly Practice
Here are my results of last weeks practice:
I saved sketching these to my Insta profile under Weekly Practices I added faces afterwards and realized how much more fun they instantly where when communicating simplified expressions
This week I’ll be doing the same poses as last week, but will do constructions of them.
Same as last week <3 If you also do constructions of the poses and tag me on Instagram. I will share some in my stories <3 #schmoescosyartclub
If you need some guidance on posing and constructing characters, check the PDFs: Schmoes-Beginners-Guide_The-Body-Bean and Schmoes-Beginners-Guide_Constructing-Characters from the EASY ART ESSENTIALS.
Remember: Start with the torso and then the rest. <3
Love,
Schmoe<3
My healthy habit is avoiding sharing pages from my sketchbook on social media. I like to have at least one space where it's just for me!
The habit I've been trying to develop recently is to pay more attention to observational drawing as a way to not only improve my ability to see something and get it down on paper, but also as a way to reduce the amount of time I'm wasting scrolling through social media.
I've been making my own sketchbooks for about a year now and I have small, pocket-sized hardback sketchbook which I take with me everywhere. If I'm meeting a buddy for coffee and I arrive early or even if I'm just parked up with a few minutes to spare on the school run, I can quickly doodle something I see.
It's not necessarily about the drawing being good, it's more about getting into the habit of looking and just enjoying the process of putting pen to paper. Allowing myself to scribble something, or take a bit more time has been very liberating. Also, stopping and paying attention to something, I feel like I'm slowly increasing my attention span to pre-social media levels :D