Well, Sunday happened. My sleep deprivation caught up to me in a dreadful way, but I tried something new that didn’t work out so well the first time, and so I didn’t save my progress.

I repeated the exercise on Monday to a better effect — I tried a different warmup. Instead of just doing line exercises, I wanted to take it to something practical-ish. So I opened up a slideshow of collected art on my computer and set the timer for the slideshow to 1 minute, then just free sketched while the slideshow was going — similar to gesture studies, but with a HUGE variety of imagery to inspire me. This is the result of the first session:

Not beautiful, but it was an interesting exercise.

I followed it up with more of the same on Tuesday:

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Which I think turned out much, much better. I mixed in some regular ol’ gesture studies in the process.

And finally, today’s sketches, which set me up to create an interesting piece of flash for sale:

Having a folder full of art, tattoos, and photos has turned into one of my best assets for creative sketching! How awesome is that?!

What was awesome?

Getting a new process dialed in!

What needs work?

Not incredibly productive lately, with the exception of today.

Also, I didn’t publish for three friggin’ days.

What did I learn?

One thing at a time until it’s done. Then the next thing. Extreme preparation helps me accomplish more. Schedule buffers.

And don’t forget to check out CreateQuest – a project that I’m working on with Chris Beaven. It’s our mission to bring creatives together in an empowering community with a focus on improving the world, not just changing it.