Most people who know me know that I am an extremely busy person.
Being such, I just have days where there is either no time to draw, no motivation to draw, or, I am just plain too wore out to draw.
Last year when this happened, I bought a cute little sketchbook at Wal-Mart for about $5, and decided I was going to keep some sort of a sketch journal. At the time, I decided to theme that particular journal around Black Widow and Hawkeye Chibis...
I did pretty good at keeping up with this sketchbook. If I fell behind, I just caught up the next day. And, I actually managed to get most of the entries in that journal colored, too (which always seems to be a time thing for me)!
And so after I pretty much filled up that sketchbook, I didn't keep another one for awhile. I had time to do some sort of art every day at the time, and so it wasn't as necessary as it had been before. But this summer has been so crazy, jam packed full, that squeezing in any time for art has just not happened. I know I sound like a broken record when I keep talking about it, but when you're someone that wants to be drawing and improving all the time, it can be very discouraging!!! So I went back to Wal-Mart and purchased another blank sketchbook to keep as a journal.
Most people that keep art journals or sketch journals nowadays really do so much with them, that it makes mine look really shabby in comparison! But for me, my sketch journal is just about taking a few minutes each day to sketch something. Some days, it's all I have time for!!
Some days I have time to do some really nice sketches, and time to get them all colored in, too!! (I recently purchased some new glittery gel pens from Sakura, and I love them!)
I have so many reference/concept ideas saved to my tablet that I've
been wanting to try drawing, and some of my sketches have come from those!
It's really all about just trying to keep some sort of goal each day. And I have days where I fall behind and don't get the sketch done; so I just pick it back up the next day and draw two entries. I have managed to ink most of them, and color a few, but I'm pretty behind on coloring. They don't all have to be colored in, though I'd prefer that they get colored at some point!! =-) I decided to try drawing Alice (an original character) every day for now, because I wanted to practice keeping a consistency with one character.
If you are like me and have days where you don't have much time to draw, I'd encourage you to pick up a nice blank sketchbook and start keeping a sketch journal yourself!! I think it's one of the best things you can do as an artist, to make time for it every day. It's also a great way to relax at the end of a busy day, and, in a year, it's fun to go back and look through your entries to see how much you've improved!!! =-)
-Stasia-Chan '15
