Practice schedule? Yes, practice schedule!

Why? Because I apparently have the focus skills of a gnat these days. I swear, I lose track of time so easily lately. So, I figured a little reminder may just help.




It's pretty basic, really. Each day there's an activity that I want to practice (I've made some changes due to me being mildly allergic to pastels):

lesson work on Sundays
acrylic painting on Mondays
watercolor painting Tuesdays
inking with a nib Wednesdays
inking with a brush on Thursdays
soft pastels markers on Fridays
and oil pastels lesson work on Saturdays

Meanwhile, each day I want to do:

at least one sketchbook drawing
an hour's worth of art related reading (either from books, magazines, or blogs)
and an hour's worth of literature reading (reading fiction helps with your own writing)

This is meant to be in addition to commission and comic work. Unfortunately, some days I will miss due to conventions, travel, or being sick. Like yesterday and today, my body's doing its now bi-monthly 'let me stab your lower abdomen with lightening until your lady bits are completely dried up and useless' dance, which makes sitting up to do just about anything really painful. So two to four days out of each month will be lost to that. Still, all things considered, it could be worse. And it still leaves plenty of time for practice.

So while I should be able to do some watercolor work today, yesterday will definitely be getting an S.

I'm hoping this will help me get over my fear of working with different media as well. I've been scared to touch the paints and pastels so far because I'm worried someone will give me crap for the results. "This is wrong! You suck!" I know it does, I'm still learning. Seriously, cut me some slack. Most of these mediums I haven't touched since high school. It's not easy to move outside of your comfort zone. It takes guts to do so, especially while showing the process publicly.

Still, Matt bought me a wonderful easel this weekend and I want to use it. Though I may want to find a cheap area rug for underneath to catch any dropped paint. Oh, and some mineral or linseed oil for the oil pastels. I've some old student grade pastels and they seem a little resistant to blending.

At the end of the month I'll scan the printed/marked up version of the schedule so my completed/skipped days can be clearly seen. Think of it as a report card.

Well, according to the schedule I've some watercolor practice to do. Later!


"Faithfulness in the performance of small duties gives us strength to adhere to difficult determinations that life will someday force us to make."
-- Paramahansa Yogananda