2024 Daily Doodle Diary - Batch #2

Hello hello, 

Tis time for another Daily Doodle batch!

I'm not doing too bad with these so far this year!

I missed a few days this month, particularly last week, obviously, but overall, I'm keeping steady with it. I think. 

Anyway.

I'm still staying messy and loose when I need to, and my main priority is to hang onto fun and joy when I draw. 

If I feel myself straying into stress and fatigue, I try to redirect into silliness and light-heartedness.

I think that, while I learned a ton doing my previous few Diary years, there was a part of me that was trying to prove something. To myself, to others, to everything and everyone. 

I'm trying to acknowledge that part of me and let it go. 

Thursday 25 is the start of my descent into jewellery themed ideas...haha

(Patreon doesn't let us batch add images to a post, so every time I add a new image here it brings me back up to the top of the post and I'm going slowly insane).

A lot of the tiny little head sketches you see on these pages have sparked ideas for small portraits. They may look very messy and unfinished, but a lot of them will probably be developed into small drawings at some point.

I tried my best on Tuesday 13 but I was falling ill fast and I think I fell asleep on that page, hahaha.

And there we go!

My favourite spread is Feb 20/21 (so the last one), but my favourite sketch is Feb 11, not because of how it looks, but because it represents me being able to just have fun for a bit, and really let go of caring what my drawing looked like. 

Do you have a favourite sketch or spread from this batch?

I don't know why I've grown to not allow myself whimsy in my work anymore, I have a theory that it might stem from struggling to take myself seriously professionally (impostor syndrome and lack of self-confidence ya know) and feeling like no-one else does either, so I need to feel like I do serious work to over-compensate? Something like that. 

But I miss being silly and I'm finding a lot of relief in these occasional silly pages. 

Thanks for listening to my TED talk, love you all, 

M