Late in 2020, at the end of November, to be precise, I began working on a 365 project. For those who don’t know, the basic concept of a 365 project is to do one thing every day, in whatever the medium of choice is. While it might be obvious for me to choose to do this for photography, my goals are to actually improve my illustrative skills – from a drawing and conceptual stand point, so that eventually, I’ll provide illustrative design services for clients (in addition to my other offerings), as well as to offer designed/art products. Also, I wanted a creative outlet, outside of professional work. SO… I decided and committed to doing one drawing/illustration per day for a year.
In the past, I tried to do a 365 photo project, but I only made it 140-something days in before I quit. The biggest problem I had was putting pressure on myself to create share-able/polished images… Since I am a photographer, after all. However, the pressure became too much and I eventually quit.
The beauty of the drawing project is that, there are no rules, no expectations, and I don’t have to share anything if I don’t absolutely want to. It can be total crap. Or it can be a masterpiece. But, I just gotta do it. And, I am now approaching the time in which I gave up on my project the last time, and I’m happy to report, that although, sometimes I experience resistance, I’m still going strong and am still enjoying it.
So, what do I draw? Literally anything. Some things are conceptual, some are pictures of friends, some are pictures of my house plants, some are abstract, some inspired by photos I found on Instagram, some are inspired by the pandemic…
So… in this entry, I’ll share some sketches that I made in response to the pandemic. (In future posts, I’ll share other themes.)
Some aspects of the pandemic for me have been fluctuations in work (some very busy times, some super slow times), a lot of isolation (working from home while living alone), interruptions to normal holiday plans, and an uptick in personal fitness.
