Daily Doodle Diary #1

Hello lovely peeps, 

How are you all doing?

Happy New Year! Did you guys do anything for your new year? I personally just stayed home with my parents, had nice food and chatted with my boyfriend. Exactly what I needed. I find New Year’s Eve to have always been more stress than anything, so I was to have no plans this year. Plus, I pretty much feel brain dead from 2019, so needed to conserve all the energy I could for the onslaught of 2020. 

I don’t typically really do “resolutions” in the new year, as I find that that concept in itself tends to not make me want to do any of it, but I do set some goals for the year that I feel are likely to happen, or are things I was working towards for a while anyway, such as aiming to have a gallery show last year, which I did. I had several in fact! 

I have a few goals for 2020 that I could share with you if you’d like to here about them, let me know! 

That said, this year, one of my goals is to work as much and as often as possible in my sketchbooks. I want to sketch lots, because I have felt during all of 2019, that I wasn’t getting enough art done, and I definitely want to remedy to that this year.
Since I haven’t drawn in a few weeks now, I feel very rusty and quite stressed about the prospect of getting back into it, so I decided to start small.
I bought myself a daily agenda/diary, and I have decided that I will try my very best this year to do a drawing on as many days as possible.
Since the diary is fairly small, I can’t do very intricate or complex drawings, and it is best if I limit myself to quick doodles and sketches, but I am hoping that it will help me build up a good daily habit, while also helping me loosen up and enjoy the process of drawing without any pressure or expectations. 

I am trying not to expect of myself to do original ideas or particularly finished or elaborate drawings. This exercise is purely to force myself to put pen to paper on a regular basis. 

I might share a few of these in my Insta stories occasionally, but I will probably most likely keep those sketches for mine and your eyes only, to keep the pressure to a minimum.
I will include any sketches I managed to complete during the month into your monthly sketchbook PDF (on top of anything other sketches I complete in other sketchbooks, as usual). 

I hope I can keep up with this habit, and I have been enjoying the first few days of the year and already feeling the benefits of the practice. 

Here is what I have done in the diary so far. 

I started off the year by sketching my dad, who was reading on the sofa while I sketched by the fire. It was a really nice moment, and I felt like it was appropriate to start off the diary. :) 

I didn’t get his exact likeness, but I am still pretty happy with this sketch, it gives off the kind of vibe I wanted, and I think I did capture some of his characteristic features!

In case you didn’t know, my dad is half Chinese, he was born in Hong-Kong and moved to the UK when he was 5. My grandma is full Chinese and is the most adorable little lady. :) 

I think that building this habit is going to take some getting used to, and the next couple days of the year weren’t much of a success, haha.
The good thing though, is that although I struggled to think of anything to draw, I did manage to sit down for a few minutes and attempt something (I erased the day 2 drawing, but I did sit down and try to draw that day too). 

It’s a pretty exciting little endeavour though, because those two days already taught me a few things :
- This exercise is not for me to necessarily come up with original ideas every day. It is to build the habit of creating a little bit every day, and it shouldn’t matter whether I decide to draw an original concept,or redraw an old one, or an object or person around me. It’s literally just about sitting down and showing up to create, and I absolutely need to understand that myself and fully embrace that process.
- Every time I manage to sit down and doodle, I feel really happy. It makes me feel so much happier with myself and with my day, no matter how much I have managed to draw in the diary. It was only day 3 and I was already starting to feel my excitement for drawing coming back (always tricky after a long period with no drawing), and I could feel myself loosen up and become less stressed about sketching again. 

The last few days, I have managed to take the time to do more complex doodles. Neither took me long, I’d say each sketch has been taking me between 5 and 15 mins of mindless mark-making. 

When I took the decision to start this project, a part of me doubted I would be satisfied by simply doodling in the diary, and just drawing for the sake of making marks. I have a weird mind, that doesn’t give me much rest, and I have difficulty feeling like I have achieved anything most of the time, let alone when I just...well, doodle.
But so far, I have been proved really wrong. The simple joy of knowing I have managed to complete this tiny task I set myself every day is enough to make this project worth while right now, and I can already tell that the longer I manage to maintain the habit, the more beneficial the exercise will become, both for training my mind to loosen and relax, and helping me work better, create better and evolve as an artist.
I’m excited. 

And finally, here is today’s sketch. 

I painted a similar idea last year some time I think, and every since then, I have been thinking of making a simple animated version of it where the eyes blink. I might experiment with Procreate to draw that up.
I want to revamp my YouTube channel, and redesign a bunch of things, and I thought I might use that animation/gif (if I manage to create it) for my “thanks for watching” outdo. XD
What do you all think? :D

Anywho.
Just thought I’d share this little project of mine with you.
It is highly possible I will give it up at some point soon, as is common with New Year resolutions and projects, but I do tend to be quite stubborn, so hopefully it will stick. I would really love to make a sketchbook tour of it at the end of the year!
In the meantime, it will be for insta stories every so often, and mostly for your lovely patron eyes. <3

I hope you are well and that this new year is treating you well so far! 

Take good care peeps,
See you very soon,
M