-->
After Inktober
(in October) and SkaDaMo (in November) passed me by because
I was too busy with the latest picture book dummy and then my NaNoWriMo novel,
I decided to do a drawing a day in December. I had an anemic Tumblr page that I
was eager to fill up with doodles and sketches. I’ve read and heard that art
directors et al appreciate seeing an illustrator’s sketching style as well as
their finished work, and since I had been working so intently on my picture
book dummies, I hadn’t been able to share as many of my drawings as I would
have liked to. So, also in an effort to distance myself from my latest picture
book as well as the new NaNoWriMo project, as well as to make the December
scheduling madness more manageable, the drawing-a-day-December was born. Once I
had announced my intention to my friends, they spread the word, and pretty soon
we had formed a nice-sized group page on Facebook. We brainstormed a long list
of prompts and set up a schedule, so that the day’s topic would be
automatically tweeted every morning at 8am.(#drawingadaydecember)
After the
first few days, I was seriously wondering if the group was going to make it
through. Many participants dropped out after the first day, or hadn’t even
submitted at all. But, to my surprise, my friend’s mother-in-law was steadfast
and stuck it through with me. Newly recovered from a brain implant, she was
experiencing the pleasure of having control over her limbs again after spending
many years suffering from Parkinson’s. This was her outlet. And what a joy it
was to see how happy she was to be doing what she loved once again, not to
mention providing me with positive reinforcement to keep going with the daily
drawings, even if it meant I would have to miss out on some social activities.
After 31 days,
I had 31 drawings. Not all of them were fully realized in color, and obviously
not all of them were good, but I had completed a challenge I’d set out for
myself. Check them out on the "Sketches" tab on this website.
Other positive outcomes:
I also learned to approximate the time it takes to do a fully realized
drawing. If it’s at all complicated, it will likely take more than one day
(hence the unfinished ones)
I’d managed to
grow my Instagram following slightly. (it’s still paltry)
And, last but not least, I began to receive
a lot of kudos from my fellow illustrators. To this day, I’m still hearing,
“Oh, you work A LOT.” Which is sort
of one of the best compliments you can give me, since I’m always terrified I’m
being lazy when I need to stop work to process things or whatnot.
So, YAY!
