Tips for keeping a daily drawing habit
Tips and strategies for establishing a daily drawing habit.
Some time ago, one of my New Year’s Resolutions was to draw every single day for a year. It just so happened to be Jan 1, 2020 that I began. And we all know how that year went.
But as it happened, over the next year I only missed twenty days or so of daily drawing. Since a daily drawing habit seems to be the kind of thing that many artists (both aspiring and working) try to start and maintain in their lives, I’d thought I’d share some of the things that worked for me. Maybe they’ll do the trick for you!
One: Start small. I set a very low bar for success. My goal wasn’t to start and finish a drawing every day; it was just to draw every day. Yes, there were days where I spent two hours working on the line drawing for a painting, and most days I would do a small drawing in my sketchbook. But there were also days that I was just out of time or energy, and my daily drawing was nothing more than a quick rough-in of what would be tomorrow’s drawing (sometimes as little as sixty seconds of work). Even a small step like that was enough to keep the habit going.
Two: Keep your materials accessible. I have a little nook in the common living area with my sketchbooks, a few pencils and a sharpener. Even if I don’t make it into my studio, I can draw.
Three: Have a project. This helped me immensely. I can definitely spend way too much time trying to find the perfect idea or reference to draw for the perfect page. And I don’t have time to do that every day. So I started a few themed projects that helped keep me in a groove. I didn’t have to waste time at every drawing session trying to decide what to draw; the decision was made well beforehand. I could easily plan out several weeks of work in an hour or two of sorting through my reference. My ring-billed gull sketchbook and my travel sketchbook were both examples of these. For both, once all the line-drawings were finished, the sketchbooks were moved from our common room into my studio for the colour work. The travel journal is finished; the gull sketchbook is steadily progressing in-between other projects (and I expect it will be a few years before it’s done). I’m currently working in this manner on the line drawings for a vulture sketchbook. The other advantage of this workflow is that by the time I’m ready to start painting, several months have passed since I’ve done the line drawing and any mistakes pop right out (always a humbling experience). And of course there is always my field/nature sketchbook to catch up on. Oh and I’ve started a perpetual nature journal focusing on the plants in my local patches this year, too. So if it’s time to draw, there is always something jump right into!
Four: Have a plan. The time to draw isn’t going to magically create itself; you have to be realistic about how much time you need and how you can reliably wedge that into your life. I do a lot of my drawing in the early morning. I’ll sometimes work in the evening, but the downside of getting up early is that even by early evening my creative energy is pretty thin on the ground.
Five: Be flexible. That being said, if you miss your usual drawing window, you don’t necessarily need to throw the day out the window. You can probably find five minutes to work so you don’t lose your streak, and come back fresh tomorrow!
Six: Multitask. There aren’t too many other things I can accomplish while I’m drawing, but if I’ve got birding penciled into the day, I can often find time to draw while I’m in the field.
I hope you found something in this post helpful. In short, define your goal, identify potential obstacles and do your best to neutralize them before they can even become a problem. Happy drawing!
-Missy
Sketchbook Process: Before and After
A breakdown of the creation of a page in my field/nature journal.
There is something about altering my field sketches back in the studio that feels fundamentally dishonest to me. It’s probably an artefact of the way we were forced to keep sketchbooks in art school (one per subject, so the entire thing could easily be handed to a teacher to review), and life drawing was observed from life only and lord help you if you stuck anything else in there or continued to work on it from memory afterwards. Still, it has been a hard notion to shake. That I am currently working with a sketchbook practice that involves a blend of both field work and studio studies is something of a minor leap forward for me. It does occasionally make me ask myself at what point it stops being a “field sketch” and is just a drawing.
I’ve decided to share a before-and-after of what I consider a successful page in my field sketchbook. Some of my field sketch pages do, in fact, survive untouched, and some get a lot of work afterwards. I will also often work from reference photos I’ve taken in the field, because this sketchbook also serves as a nature journal for me, and I don’t always have time to draw in the field but still want to record my experiences.
I had a very short amount of time to both find and make what observations I could of this vagrant laughing gull, for it had the audacity to show up on a day that was jam-packed with un-skippable obligations (rare birds have a real knack for this). Thankfully, it was easy to find (lounging right beside the parking lot), so I could spend most of my limited time sketching.
In a half-hour I was able to do this rather unevenly-composed page. I observed the bird through the scope, but was standing, so when it was time to get the paint out I had some juggling to do. I was also able to take some decent reference photos. But soon enough time was up, and I had to leave.
But I didn’t want to leave the page as it was. So back in the studio I combed through my photos and got to work. I added more written notes, both of memories of the day and observations I made about the subject. I fixed the bill on the top sketch, added in a quick sketch of its brief time on the water, and developed the other two sketches further. Adding a strong sense of lighting really gave the sketch a feel of the atmosphere of the day.
Sometimes the reference photos I manage to get suggest a theme for study, and in this case I had a good series of a strong cast shadow morphing as the bird adjusted its head back and forth. So I started a new page focusing just on that aspect, and added one more of an overcast shot when the clouds had moved in front of the sun. The image at the top of the blog post features these head studies.
Here are the two pages I ended up with after my brief outing. I certainly spent longer working on it in studio than I did in the field. I’m quite happy with them and just try not to think too much about whether or not I’m cheating. Hope you enjoyed this little peek into my process.
-Missy
Birdtober 2021!
A summary of my Birdtober 2021 challenge.
Welcome everyone! This year I decided to embark on my own Painting-a-day Challenge, and I decided to do it for #Birdtober! The rules I imposed for myself were:
No actual work started before October 1st: no cutting or stretching paper, no line drawings, etc
Complete 31 paintings in 31 days—but not forcing a new painting from start-to-finish on each day; my process simply doesn’t allow that
I did have all my reference photos picked out to save myself a little time. I’ll walk you through all the paintings I completed in my challenge. If you were following along on my Instagram, you may have noticed that the paintings were not completed in this order; part of being a watercolour artist is spending (wasting) time waiting for the paper to dry, so in those cases I worked on something else to keep plowing through the workload. Many of these are cropped for display, be sure to click on the image to see the full version! If you are interested in purchasing one (or more!), simply email me and we can get the process started; shipping can be combined!
I think I actually finished my first #birdtober painting on Day 3 but after that I caught up quickly, and I ended up finishing all but the last one about a week ahead of schedule (more on that later). I used the opportunity to play with new materials and styles.
The ducks were the first group of paintings I decided to work on, which may have been a mistake as they were quite time-intensive for a challenge like this. But while I was waiting for everything to dry I worked on line drawings for other pieces. All five of these are watercolour, with a smidge of gouache highlights on the Northern Shoveler piece. Each of these are $85 plus shipping.
The second set of paintings featured several types of wrens. I’ve been wanting to play with this new mixed-media toned paper (Strathmore 400 series in Toned Tan) for a long time, and the wrens seemed a perfect subject to start with. The surface is a delight to work on; very smooth, with some heft to it, and handles controlled paint well (not so much the watery washes, but it’s not actually watercolour paper so that’s to be expected). These are all watercolour and gouache. Each of these is $75 + shipping.
More of that Strathmore paper, this time the Toned Blue version, which I wanted to try with gulls. These are all ring-billed gulls of various ages, watercolour and gouache. Each of these is $85 + shipping.
I am working on establishing a more regular fieldwork practice, and wanted to challenge myself to complete a few plain-air paintings for #birdtober. I did sketchbook work as well, but these are all stand-alone paintings done on location in the field. All are watercolours on hot-press watercolour paper. Each of these is $75 + shipping.
And here’s my vultures! I can’t resist a preening raptor. These are all ink and watercolour. I tried to keep my linework lose but it took a while for me to loosen up; it is very unintuitive for me. Each of these is $75 + shipping.
Here’s another set that took some work spread out over quite a few days to complete. I played with complimentary colours for this set: first a saturated background wash, then a value pattern in a relative-neutral colour made of the two complimentary ones. Afterwards I did some lifting, and once dry I adjusted the local colour as necessary. All of these are watercolour and gouache on 140lb cold-press watercolour paper. Each of these is $85 +shipping.
These next two were a treat to do. Back to the Strathmore 400 series paper. First I laid in the bird with watercolour pencils, which I rarely used and haven’t touched in years. I tried to keep this stage very loose and gestural. Then I went in with a wet brush and spread some of the pigment around; it didn’t bloom as strongly as I thought it would but that’s what experiments are for! Once it was dry I went over it with some gouache, again keeping it very loose and stopping early. Each of these is $85 + shipping.
And the grand finale! I wanted to do a more involved piece to wrap the challenge up, and so this one is considerably larger than the other warbler pieces: it measures in at 12.5 by 9.5 inches. I really liked how the leaves came out in the chestnut-sided warbler piece above, and I wanted to play with that process some more. Watercolour and gouache on 140lb cold-press watercolour paper, original $100.
And that wraps up my month-long painting challenge! I don’t know if I’ll do another one anytime soon, but I’m very glad I completed this one, and I’m excited to keep moving forward with what I learned!
—Missy
I’m teaching a Demo!
Very excited to announce that registration is open for my first online demo! Hosted by the Canadian Society of Painters in Watercolour, I will be demonstrating how I paint birds on a coloured ground with watercolour paint and gouache.
The demo is free but spots are limited, go here to sign up!
Artist Support Pledge
Happy to announce that I finally able to participate in the Artist Support Pledge movement. That means that for every $1500 CAD worth of art I sell, I will purchase $300 CAD worth of artwork from another participating artist. I’m so happy to be a part of this movement!
Below is a collection of my art that is available for under $300 CAD. I have also lowered the price of my two small yellow warbler paintings so that they can be included in the program! Shipping for these pieces is $10 CAD within Canada and United States, $15 CAD worldwide.
New Artwork Available
Hi everyone! Hope everyone is staying safe and finding ways to keep sane during this strange times. After a few chaotic weeks as quarantine started, I was fortunate enough to find a new routine and new goals to strive for, and have been able to keep finding the time to create in my studio.
And along with that comes a long-overdue addition to the galleries: my dry-media work! In addition to my newest warbler painting, I’ve added seven new coloured pencil and graphite pieces to the website. I hope they brighten your day!
BIA 2020
Hello everyone!
Delighted to share that I was juried into Birds in Art 2020 this year with my cockatoo painting, Bouquet. Unfortunately the opening weekend celebrations have been (very understandably) cancelled, and not being American it’s unlikely I would have been able to attend anyway given the probable travel restrictions that will be in place, but it is still a slight disappointment.
But still, congratulations to all my fellow artists in the show this year. Hopefully we will all be lucky enough to see each other next year!
Stay safe and stay healthy everyone!
Inktober 2019 Round One: Marabou Stork
Inktober 2019 is finally here! This year I am rotating through a handful of different birds, experimenting with different styles for each one. This first round features the marabou stork, an incredibly ugly bird with a fascinating array of features to draw. Watching these guys fly is a surreal experience: they seem too big to get airborne, and yet they do.
Inside my sketchbook: Oct 2019
Hello again everyone! Today I thought I would show you some of the sketches I did at my last outing. As in my earlier post, these are done with layers of both water-soluble and traditional graphite.
Hello again everyone! Today I thought I would show you some of the sketches I did at my last outing. As in my earlier post, these are done with layers of both water-soluble and traditional graphite.
Hope you all enjoyed the peak inside my sketchbook. Talk to you soon!
Missy
Tales from my Sketchbook: Water-soluble Graphite
Hi everyone!
As every artist uses their sketchbook differently and there’s no wrong way to do so, I always enjoy looking at all the many ways people put these versatile yet humble tools to such beautiful use. So today I’m going to go in depth with one page in my sketchbook that I did recently. Each of my sketchbooks has its own place in my artistic workflow: this particular sketchbook is reserved for studies, either drawn from life or from photo reference. This is a preference I picked up in art school, where we had to keep separate life drawing sketchbooks for gesture drawing.
Materials used on this page: A5 sketchbook with 85gsm paper, 6B Aquarelle water-soluble graphite pencil, 4B graphite pencil, brush and water
Step One: The initial sketch
I’ve always enjoyed drawing skulls (the vulture lady likes skulls? Shocking), and on a recent trip to a local museum I had the opportunity to do a little drawing, but no time for longer studies. I usually do field sketches in pen, but I’ve been wanting to work the water-soluble graphite into my sketchbook for a long time, and I thought an unmoving-subject would be perfect for an early experiment. I used the water-soluble graphite pencil to gesture-in the initial sketch of the subject. I do each one of these fairly quickly, in about a minute or maybe two, then moving to a different position to study it from another angle. While these sketches certainly aren’t neat and tidy, they have an energy to them that I enjoy. Once the sketches were done, I took a few photos of the skeleton from each angle.
Step Two: Just add water
The next step involved wetting the graphite. In this case I did it back at home, as I didn’t have enough time on location to wait around for wet paper to dry. I concentrated on smoothing out the value transitions, as well as softening some edges. Then I allowed the paper to dry.
Step Three: Refinement
Now I brought up my reference photos to refer to while I refined my sketches. I used to never, ever alter a life drawing gesture — whatever I did on the spot was it and anything else was cheating — but now I let myself do whatever I want with my own reference. I mostly referred to the photos for lighting, and they helped me decide which lines to emphasize. The gestures are still rough and sketchy, and I took care to not overwork them. I used a regular 4B graphite pencil for this step. In my experience a second layer of water-soluble graphite causes more problems than it solves.
And that’s it, folks. Hope this little window into my process was at least mildly interesting. I’m definitely going to be using this technique more often.
Happy creating!
MIssy
We're live!
We’re live!
It’s been a long time coming, but the website is finally up. Please let me know if you find any glitches, I’d really appreciate it.
As you can tell if you’ve looked around a little bit, I’m a wildlife artist focusing on birds. My current body of work is centered on a vultures and parrots, with a third family in the works for the future. I mostly work in watercolur and have been juried into the Canadian Society of Painters in Watercolour.
My plan for this space is to post periodic preliminary work and experiments that you might find interesting, and any news updates as they come.
Thanks for stopping by!
Missy