MISSION COMPLETE: 100 Tiny Drawings
Pump the brakes, hit the gas!
Listen to the article voiceover for additional spice and a shockingly low amount of editing and attention to detail!
Hi-dee-ho, friends!
We made it... again! Mission complete. 100 Tiny Drawings in the month of January in the bag. In this post, I would like to reminisce on the good times and the bad and touch on what's next. I realize it is already the second week in February, but I wanted to take a little break before sitting back down. Let's get into it.
Show me the goods!
Okay, okay. Keep your shirt on, geez. I now present, in all of their doodle-y glory, 100 Tiny Drawings painstakingly (this was probably my own fault) presented in the always-popular grid layout. Behold!
Quick Recap
From the first post:
…today I would like to introduce 100 Tiny Drawings - a project I’m using to get the ball rolling on digital art journey and this publication. Still don’t know how I feel about using the word journey in this context. Seems overdone, but It’s all I got right now. Oh, well.
Over the course of January, I am going to create and post 100 b&w doodles. That’s it. Easy, right? 100 Tiny Drawings.
From the update post:
I started second guessing myself (5 out of 5, would recommend) with bangers like:
"Am I being dishonest?" and "Is it a doodle?"
—given that what I was drawing seemed to be drifting from the spirit of the project, getting more complex by the drawing. After some newsletter therapy, I left things feeling that what I was drawing was still a doodle (imo), but decided to pump the brakes a little bit for the back half of the project.
After the update post:
I circled back to my first post and what I ended on:
Black & White
100 by 1/31
Keep it simple (best judgment)
Anything else goes
Ooooooohhhhhhhhh. “Best judgement.” “Anything else goes.” It seemed like in my wise old age I had planned for this eventuality. Sooo….. hit the gas! But first…
Right into a wall
Well, not really hitting a wall so much as slowly approaching the wall in a minivan unable to change lanes because the freeway is too crowded, everyone is honking at me, and I missed my exit.
I gotta tell you, the first 30 or so drawings were flowing like a river, but then around 50, the river hit a dam. I was still moving, but things got tough. I had to spend just as much time thinking about what to draw as actually drawing.
It was good mental exercise, though. It would have been too easy to just draw in categories or something like "And now here is all 26 letters of the alphabet in, you guessed it, 26 different drawings! And wouldn't you know it, here is the same thing, but lowercase." Although, that might be kind of fun, to tell you the truth.
Anyway, I will say that I did eventually drive that minivan onto the information superhighway for some inspiration. I'm not some kind of idea savant over here.
Escalation games
If I can do A, can I do A better next time? If I can do A better, can I do A + B? This is probably the natural process of most people seeking some kind of mastery in whatever endeavor. In this case, the progress was very tangible and very immediate. If I can layer and fill, what if I layer and fill and then erase a bit over here?
This is part—well, most—of the reason why it was so hard to pump the brakes. When you're first starting out, you have the most room for growth. It's hard to slow down when you're learning and actively trying to improve. Why would you want to artificially stop progress? This was about the time I decided to just hit the gas. Draw now, ask questions later and all that.
But that did leave me...
Feeling a little dirty
Digital tools, man. They're great, but is it cheating? Not if they're the rules that everyone is playing by.
I'm mostly referring to things like holding to make a straight line or a perfect circle (not the band) in programs like Procreate and the occasional outline tracing.
I'm a beginner. I'm still learning how to sketch. How to control. How to shape. As such, I still need—a lot—of help. It felt like cheating at times. This goes back to the feelings of dishonesty I mentioned in the last post. I have a real problem with impostor syndrome and feeling like I'm misrepresenting myself. I want to build and maintain a good reputation.
So, in the name of transparency, I will say that while I did mostly sketch from reference or go straight to inking, there were times when I traced an outline to help me get shape/proportions right. So instead of calling it "cheating," let's rebrand as "learning." Give it a more positive spin.
Still feeling a little dirty, though.
Font weight a minute
Speaking of tools, how great is the current state of drawing apps. What started out as me using a single brush and weight quickly turned into... a few more brushes and weights haha. I jest, but I did end this project with a shortlist of go-tos including:
Eraser brush
The Classic Inker
Riso Wet 50% Shader
Draw-and-Hold
Opacity slider
Alpha lock
Materials library
Texture brushes
Eraser brush
Not the least of which was the eraser brush. Did I mention the eraser brush? And I don't mean in the "oops, I made a mistake" context, but rather using different erase brushes to achieve some sort of effect or look. Sometimes it’s what you take away, not what you add. For example, I was a big fan of using the Riso brush as an eraser to give a kind of film grain look. You can see that in almost all of the drawings.
You might also notice brush weights decreasing and more detail being added as things progressed. There was one drawing (Rope - 092) where I thought it almost looked like a properly shaded pencil sketch when I was done. I actually when back in and inked the outline to pull it back into line with its peers.
I must say I was worried it was all going to be overwhelming after opening the app for the first time, but the trick was not trying to do everything all at once. Just pick a few things, the basics, and see where it takes you. Try a few things, then add a few more. After a bit of trial and error, you get an idea of what tool you can use (and what you might be able to use) for a particular result. A + B. Layers, me boy. I guess I am a Leprechaun now.
Speaking of, Layers has to be the quintessential digital drawing tool. Thoughts? On to the...
Highlights
I know this is going long, but allow me a moment to break down my 5 favs. In order of appearance.
What next?
It’s time to Steal Like an Artist. Yes, I am referring to the book by Austin Kleon.
I think I am going to continue experimenting with Procreate (tools and tutorials and all that), but I would also like to start trying to emulate various artists and illustrators, particularly storybook illustrators. It's no secret that I want to write and illustrate children's books and I have a bookshelf full of inspiration to draw from thanks to my own kiddos.
From there, I might try to start illustrating one of the handful of completed manuscripts I have. Maybe try to self-publish on Amazon or perhaps put together a zine. I've really gotten into the idea of zines as of late. They are so rad; the culture, the style, the presentation... Rad!
Do good work. Share it with others. Repeat
Anyway... Expect the occasional bit of drawing progress on Cara and another newsletter post when I have accumulated enough progress worth posting about. Until the next one.
Later tater,
Bo
