You Can Improve Rapidly If You Consistently Finish And Publish Pieces
have written and thrown away around one hundred articles I had written. My articles used to be long rants. People would unsubscribe. (Fortunately, more kept subscribing than unsubscribing, but still.)
I looked at the articles to understand why and realized the tone and the voice may have been off-putting.
I switched to shorter articles where I shared one idea to contemplate, and the unsubscribes stopped.
Putting work out early allows you to test your work on real audiences. Don’t be afraid to throw out early work that isn’t working.
You also get into the habit and routine of publishing and get a feel for how much you can produce in a given time. It feels good to finish things, and publishing on a regular schedule keeps you accountable.
Make sure it isn’t an ambitious schedule, or you’ll burn out.
This Week
As per the above article, I publish a weekly newsletter. And I’m now experimenting with making YouTube videos that showcase the tools on Practice Drawing This. However, I want to do it in a way that allows it to stay sustainable for me, so I have time to draw.
I resisted making videos where I talk, because that takes a significant amount of my time away from drawing. It would be ‘off-brand’, as they say: I’m trying to convince you to draw more, and here I am, wasting time making entertainment.
These videos are straightforward for me to make, so I hope they work. Filming the model rotating takes five minutes. Penciling a page takes 45 minutes, filming myself inking the page takes 25 minutes, and editing the video takes me one or two hours. This means I can comfortably make two to three weeks’ worth of videos in one day.
It aligns with my goal of drawing extensively and continually testing the drawing practice tools I’ve created myself.
Because I should be using my tools, and I’ll be honest, for a while, I had to force myself to do so. It wasn’t fun. And that’s the point! If I don’t want to use those tools, then how can I expect you to?
Now, the flashcards are fun, though. I keep finding things I want to improve. The balance at the beginning of the day is good now. You do some warm-up exercises to enhance dexterity or practice 3D form, then work on flashcards. After each flashcard, a page tells you to take a moment to have fun with the reference you just practiced, doing something creative with it.
The watch and subscriber counts for the videos I just posted weren’t spectacular up until now, but I did see a notable uptick in newsletter subscribers! This was also my goal. It’s interesting, and I’m pleased with that. I want people to draw more, not to consume media more. I need to look at the data more closely, though.
For now, happy drawing!
Yours sincerely,
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