I’ve successfully completed the first week of sketching on a daily base!

On the first couple of days I’ve tried to get the balance between “not so time consuming” and “not to easy”. “Not to easy” was not that hard to get, because everything I try to get on paper (or “into paper” as I use the fabulous iPad app a lot) is hard for me.

Getting things done in time is much harder, because I have to redo things a lot or need some time to get a straight line or similar. There is nothing wrong in general with this, but I think it is better to just draw and see how it comes out in the end. After some sketches I started to create a list of things which didn’t work for me. These are the things I will improve with little exercises like drawing parallel strokes again and again.

I also started to not only draw on iPad because I want (and need) to learn how to use the “real tools”, so I also bought some sketchbooks, ball pens and new pencils. For now I feel very motivated and I really hope that this feeling will continue on. I’ve set up a reminder on my iPhone which rings every day on the same time and says “Sketch now!”. This will help myself to not push the challenge away at one day because every time I look at my phone I will see that I’ve not done with all my things for the day.

Résumé

This week helped me to flesh out the rules for the challenge a bit more, because I’ve seen that I should try to work more on my issues more in the sketches. For example if I want to draw something in perspective but have now clue how to do it right I will do a sketch where the technique matters but not the object itself. This week it was the two point perspective which I did with a simple cube and some shadows. Some days later I did a stapler and it felt much more comfortable.

So here are my new “rules” for the challenge:

• try new things – learn to use new techniques to get the achieved looks
• keep it simple – concentrate on the technique, learn it with easy things
• don’t overdo – it’s about sketches, but when I want to do more it’s also okay
• look at the time – at first I will track the time I need for a sketch, later on I think I will set a limit for myself