For the Fun of It - how to heal your sketchbook habit

a gentle start to the new year

What a year it's been already. I wanted to share some resources to help those who have been affected by LA's wildfires.

The amazing Crystal Kan put together this airtable list of animation folks affected by the fires. It is heartbreaking, many families and dear friends on this list. I have tried to donate where I can as we’re still recovering from the unemployment, and every little bit helps.

Additionally, Cartoon Brew has an article that shares a little bit about each story.

Reddit has a great list of resources here as well.

We are okay and all safe. It's been smoky and a little emotional draining, but holding up in the grand scheme of things.

This week, I wanted to talk about sketchbooks, habits in the new year, and things I'm trying out to try to keep being creative.

It started with reading this lovely article by Sophie Yanow about creating a gentle comic habit.

I have been on and off with habits. I've been recently rejuvenated by the addition of morning pages, and have been thinking of other ways I can add to my daily practice.
The most important thing for me though, is that it's fun. That's why the word gentle to me is so lovely. It feels appealing to set a goal of writing and drawing a picture book a day, but it's simply not realistic and will lead to burnout. So let's make small, incremental changes and additions to our day, that we're actually excited to do.

My practices

Here are my current goals.

• I'd like to do an even gentler comic practice (aiming for ten minutes or less), and I don't plan on posting them anywhere (more on that below).

• I would like to continue my daily-ish novel writing practice, where I write a few pages longhand each day.

• I would like to sketch freely and without focus for at least a few minutes a day.

• and of course, I'd like to continue my morning pages!

i changed it from good to easy because some habits are good but they are still kind of annoying for me (like exercise)

That seems like a lot, but my goal is to keep each of these activities around 10-15 minutes. If I want to do more, I can, but the point is to just do a little each day. Gentle habits! Fun habits.

Prep your materials

An important component to me is to make the habit easy to perform. I am a sleepy, sleepy little sheep, and the easiest excuse for not doing a habit is "I can't find my pencil".

For my morning pages and my novel, I prefer writing in fountain pen, so I try to make sure my supplies are filed in the morning when I've got lots of energy.

I’ve been enjoying FWP’s Bluegrass Velvet!

For sketching and comics, I just need a pad and some markers or pencils. A pencil case and a sketchpad set aside near my workspace makes it accessible and easy to grab (I especially love going to a local cafe to draw!).

Keep it offline

For me, to heal my sketchbook practice, I think I need to keep as much of my art offline. Particularly my sketchbook can feel like a farm for social media.

People love to see sketches! But drawing for social media, even if it’s at the very back of your mind, is still drawing for an audience. I'd like. to be free with how I draw again. So for me, for now, I'm going to try to take a social media break for these habits, and keep social media for posting sparingly and only my highest quality special stuff that I feel ready to share.

We'll see how it goes. I hope if you made some resolutions this year, that they're still going well. Most importantly, I hope you're happy, healthy, and safe.

I haven't bought these yet but I am majorly eyeing these Thames and Hudson illustrator books, particularly Miroslav Sasek!!! I love picture books, but I also love retrospectives like this because they will include sketchbook pieces, and rarer art. Is there one you're eyeing?

I haven't left the house in 4 days!! All I can do is watch the cats. Luppy loves covering her eyes with her hands. It’s so hard to capture in photos because she’s a little void, but I love it.

ok love u bye, be safe