The past week was the first normal work week of the year for me and a chance to start implementing the strategies that came out of my planning session the week before. Whilst a lot of what I did should remain private I’m happy to share some of the new things I am working on.

Background: I’m not a big goal setter as such – instead I prefer to work out what are the projects I think would be best to work on (what would be the most helpful for you, what I would like working on the most, what needs to be done next etc) and simply plan how I can get them done. I don’t have any grand business goals for growth and money figures etc – as a Christian, my aim is to do my duty, to live day by day and leave the results in God’s hands. So my planning session was all about establishing habits rather than big goals. These habits include:

• Creating a bit more structure in my week by theming my days. Monday = Blog day, Wednesday = SketchingNow, Friday = Outing. Tuesday and Thursday for other projects and meetings.
• Making more effort with my Instagram (I haven’t been converting my blog articles to Instagram)
• Creating more video

Last week was a success even though it was a struggle at times:

• Last week’s blogposts took longer than one full day work (including a few hours work after dinner) and my SketchingNow day also involved night work.
• Friday was a 38C day and was too hot for a serious outing. So instead I just went out to breakfast at a beach location.
• I made some big changes with how I approach Instagram – basically doing more on my desktop rather than trying to do it all on my phone.
• I’m starting a new series which will be based on Instagram – but you will be able to keep up with it here as well. Keep scrolling and you will find out more.
• I’m loving creating all the bonus videos for SketchingNow Foundations, but at this stage it is taking more time than I would like. However, the more I do it, the more efficient the whole process is getting.

As for my sketching…

Once again I’m happy with what I managed to do though there are some sketches/spreads which are not that exciting. The aim of my everyday sketching is to create a record of my life, and the habit of regular sketching makes me aware of the areas where I need to do some research and development. This is certainly happening at the moment, so it has been a successful week.

So here are the pages…

Quiet cafe morning

Shape-based sketch in the carpark (I didn’t have my paints with me, so I used my ecoline marker instead)

Double coffee morning – had a big meeting with my designers/developer to go through my never-ending to-do list.

Lovely dinner with an amazing artist – Leoni Duff – from Tasmania. I sketched on the train and then an incomplete sketch of the Russel Hotel while waiting for her. Pro tip: aim to turn up early when you are meeting someone so you can squeeze a sketch in.

Another morning cafe spread including an insanely quick sketch of three workers just before they got up.

I don’t normally share my pages from SketchingNow demos, but this one is in my everyday book. Plus I want to make sure that everyone who has enrolled in Foundations over the last 4 years knows that there are bonus videos in the classroom now. It’s so lovely to get feedback that this extra content is helpful!

After doing my video of basic shapes, I then went wild and did a crazy sketch in the carpark. There are a lot of yummy washes and watercolour magic in this sketch.

Another cafe sketch – I can’t wait until the school holidays are over so I have some more people to sketch.

Heavy carpark sketch, my dinner and a new ink pad.

My Friday outing was breakfast at Balmoral Beach – my order and view from my table.

A quick sketch of Rocky Point, Balmoral.

Start of my new Instagram project – sketching my way through my teacup collection. (More here)

And a quick sketch of a local house from the carpark… it was 38C so I had to work fast.

Saturday breakfast at Goodfields – sitting in a corner (not much room) at an awkwardly high bench.

Extremely quick loose people sketches and a few tree trunks. And that was my week.

The big change in my thinking recently is to really focus on sketching at every event/place I go but at the same time to lower the expectation of what I actually achieve. I’m still not sketching everywhere, but I’m certainly doing it more than I have previously. As you can see in this week’s sketches, I am mixing it up and using a lot of fast sketching techniques (based on Foundations concepts). I’m not always happy with the results, but I’m happy that I’m sketching and creating a personal record of my life.

So how did you go with your sketching this week?