From January 7th 2016 to January 7th 2017. I drew and or painted everyday.
The October before I was making an effort to draw everyday just to fill / justify the obscene amount of sketchbooks I've acquired and never finished though the years. But 3 weeks in I was just repeating the same drawing and characters everyday. I was just starting to get familiar with Instagram and found out about Inktober, which sounded amazing to me but I was pretty late to that game. It did get my brain wheels churning though. After some digging I found a place that posted themes everyday and it was awesome. It's r/sketchdaily and it is awesome. Everyone there is super supportive, amazingly talented and all really helpful. I can't remember seeing a post or reply that was mean spirited or filled with unwanted or unjustified criticism.
My Rules:
One sketchbook page a day
Post finished work everyday
Spend no more than 2 hours total on the day's theme.
Stay on topic unless life gets involved, or there is an occasion for cake.
I dove right in, I didn't have a plan or end game, I just wanted to start and somehow muddle though a full year of creative commitment. The first couple of months I wasted a LOT of paper. I've always worked small and cutting it down to size created a bunch of waste. So just about the same time I unofficially committed to doing daily watercolors, I cut down the work area. I cut all the papers down to baseball card sizes: 2.5 x 3.5" Turns out that was the perfect size for me, storage was easier, and I finally had a purpose for all the leftover card protectors I had laying around.
I kept everything. Every. Thing.
Every piece of reference material, every piece of tracing paper and every drawing that went South on me. I kept them for prosperity, but now it seems more like a fire hazard.
The red accordion folder is all the paperwork I had before switching to a smaller format. The smaller blue one has every from that point on. It was WAY more manageable and created much less waste... except for that tin in front. Those are all the times I messed up in the middle of working the colors or lines. Mainly children running into the drafting table or the rouge sneeze catching me off guard.
2016 Wrap
Thats it! All done this round, although I realized the second to last day I started on a leap year so I did one more for good measure.
I'm not sure what I will ultimately do with all of these, some of these I'm genuinely proud of, others... well can't hit a home run every time you step to the plate. I'm excited to start the next leg of this trip. Drawing and creating have become part of something I do everyday now instead of just a hobby. My forever roommates / primary primates really, REALLY helped me along the way and if not for them I might not have seen this through.