So I haven't done Sketch-a-day in a while now as those very few of you that followed it might have noticed. It's not that the feature was a failure, quite the contrary. Sketch-a-day thought me a lot about where my where my traffic could come from, the weight of keeping up regular, daily updates on a site but mostly, what snuck up on me, is how damn hard sketching really is. Not the artistic act of course but rather the production of something that is, by definition incomplete and how difficult it is not to over-think and over-do it. Another problem I encountered, a luxury problem I confess, is that every second sketch made me want to turn the artwork into a finished piece. This lead to a few interesting projects, some of which I am still looking forward to. Finally, there is the question of time, or rather scheduling. It's easy to ind 15 minutes to devote to a quick doodle, but I need to find a regular time at which to do it. One that won't interfere with my other projects.
Now, I am looking forward to many changes. On Monday I start work on my third book. I'm incredibly excited to revisit the characters from my second book and tell their continuing adventures. More importantly, it means that I am that much closer to being in a position to present these characters to you.
I will also be moving in a few weeks. This opens the door to many exciting things as I will finally have a studio in which to work. While I reap the most joy from writing, having a space where I can paint, draw and type will give me the opportunity to be much more organized in how I approach these projects. At the very least, it gives me one less excuse.
Lastly, Sketch-a-day was taking time away from another very important project; building my website. While slapping together a site is easy, putting together the images to make that site truly my own is time consuming. I want to spend the effort into making this site at least borderline interesting visually so that I can send more people to it without being overwhelmed by shame.
What does this mean for Sketch-a-day? It means that I'm going back to doing it. There won't be any flavor text and I'll be much more raw. If a sketch sucks and didn't work out, so be it. We learn from our mistakes. I will remain open to sketch requests on Twitter however. I will also be posting more about my writing efforts and other subjects. I want to make this site more active and offer more content.
This is a work in progress and while I know where I want to get with it, I still have a long road ahead before getting there.