Okay, here is my latest plan.
Apparently I’m completely unable to work on multiple projects. My idea of working on 1) art to post 2) picture book art and 3) my second draft of my MG fantasy while 4) keeping up with homeschooling and running the rest of the ship, has utterly failed.
So, I’ve decided to simplify.
In order to get better at backgrounds, and not go all Bob Rossy when I get to them (happy trees are great and all, but they’re not helping my compositions right now), I went back over some of SVSlearn.com’s courses. One that sticks out to me is Will Terry’s ‘Draw 50 Things’ approach. I love detailed story pics. I think I paused this course several months ago when I went to draw a forest scene and realized I didn’t know how to draw animals. Which led to a huge and long study on drawing animals (see many previous pictures). I’m now pretty happy with my ability to figure out how to draw animals, but I haven’t figured out how to fill in the rest of the picture. Trees? Ferns? Rocks? Distant mountains? I can pretend I can do it, but I’d rather feel like I knew what I was doing AND have the same style throughout the picture. So, for my first ‘Draw 50 Things,’ I’m aiming for a garden scene. I love gardening, so this felt like an easy go.
Similar to having my NaNoWriMouses all set so I could focus on NaNoWriMo, I started my study a week ago, and have enough simple (very simple) pics to share on social media while I work on ‘Janowrimo’ — the month where I finish my second draft!
Yup. One creative focus: Writing.
But, starting in January, the Draw 50 Things is on the back burner. So far I have 13: A study of one item, a collection of those items, and a character creation out of those items (to keep it fun). Which is 36+ pics ready to share! Feels like a bit of a ‘Slovember’ approach, but I think I need it!
Happy New Year! It’s going to be AMAZING!!!!