My habit when I do a goal post is to look back at the previous goal post, so I can say “this is what I said I would do last time” and “this is what actually happened”. With writing that review can get long as I’ve been doing that a long time. With art? How long has it been? I didn’t do a post with any intentions really for this year. I think I might have briefly mentioned art in my WriYe post but I knew 2022 was going to be crazy with moving. That also tanked the end of last year so I don’t think I did a proper wrap-up for 2021 art-wise either.

So as a little baby review
I think I first started trying to draw things when I was 19. And by draw things I mean I traced around photos, colour picked off them, and did gradients as a form of shading. Still it gave me a taste for it. I quit for some years to be honest, or at least I can’t find from poking around on my HD anything I really did between then and when I went back to fandom in 2016. Again I started off with just tracing but then I started trying to do a little more. I changed the clothing first, and then I wasn’t satisfied with that and tried a modelling program to make my own reference. I traced around that, but at least it wasn’t just a photo (or so I told myself).

So it continued like that and then December 2020 was something that didn’t come from any single reference. I had failed at making a 3D model, so I tried to find photos that were close and then I’d shifted it around. I even took some photos of my own hands to try and get the angles right.

2021 I obtained my first art course, and I started trying more traditional art (not just digital). By the looks of things I did 4 digital + 2 traditional drawings in 2021.

This year, 2022, I did a couple of eye drawings on paper with pencils, and a drawing of some roses with coloured pencils (following the Coloured Pencil Academy course). I also did one digital drawing of Seven and Raffi from Star Trek: Picard. Finally I signed up when the courses were 75% off on Udemy for 7 different art courses. Promptly I did not do any of them because 2022 = crazy year.

Why am I posting this now and not end of December ready for next year?
Because there are still two months of 2022 left.

Following the HB90 system, there are three goals per quarter. Goal #1 is obviously writing, but Goal #2 is art. Now with still sorting out some house things, and all the writing courses I wanted to evaluate, I decided to bench art until November – but guess what, it’s November tomorrow.

Yesterday, I went over the art courses and found places they overlapped and worked out a tentative plan of how to work my way through them. I decided that I should stick with the Coloured Pencil Academy course and finish that first.

So the intention from November 1st, is on every possible occasion Monday-Saturday, commit three hours per day to working on the art. That isn’t demanding any kind of pieces, or amount of progress, as I don’t know how long the various courses or assignments will take me. Some sessions I might be watching videos and taking notes. Other times I will be working on an assignment. Some days I might decide to just work on something I feel like doing and not one of the courses, who knows! But I am going to try and stick to those three hours unless there is a reason why I can’t (illness, appointment etc.)

I think I put in a previous art post that I felt like where I was with art, was akin to where I have been with writing. I don’t have much confidence, I might have been scratching around for years now but that doesn’t mean I have made years worth of progress. I think I declared at the start of 2020 I was “getting serious” and then promptly didn’t do much but 2020 wasn’t anyone’s year. I had so many panic attacks that year, it was hard to do much of anything.

Now I’m in control of my environment I don’t feel as inhibited. I am hoping that will mean I can embrace doing art regularly and then (thanks to the regular practice) hopefully improve. Cross fingers. Time will tell.