Tips for keeping 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
