One Habit at a Time
March - Saturating my days with art making and it works
Hola, dearest reader,
I hope that March has been kind to you.
Here is me with my tiny belated report. So, March has been a long month, and a lot has happened.
I am still on my YouTube weekly schedule, with very minor hiccups like publishing a video on Monday instead of Friday, which technically makes it next week. But I don’t mind; I am still managing it through all the hardships along the way. I noticed that slowly YouTube is starting to recognize my effort and is showing my videos to people via the recommendation page, which is sweet.
I went to Berlin to visit my bestie in November 2024, finally edited a vlog
The habit that I was introducing into my life in March, though, was a daily sketching one. I still need to work on my skills to bring me where I want to go. And I want to be able to draw from imagination as well. I rarely do it, but after this month of daily sketches, it started to happen more frequently. There is a lot of drawing in my life lately, and I don’t say that to complain. Rather, I celebrate it—it is something I always wanted.
How exactly did I introduce the habit-building routine? Here is a two-step recipe that worked for me, and maybe it will work for you. The first step added accountability, and the second made the process smooth.
I committed with a friend of mine that we would send photos of our sketches to each other via messenger every day.
To simplify the challenge, I used the same A6 sketchbook and decided to do a page a day with a simple black ballpoint pen. Every day the same—it helped me focus on doing and not spend time deciding what medium to use.
A funny thing happened one day when I wrote to my friend: "Listen, I am sorry, no sketch from me today. I messed up and did not do it. It is evening, and I am too tired." The next day, I decided to do two pages to catch up. Can you imagine my surprise when I opened my sketchbook and saw that I had actually done that sketch yesterday? I had just completely blanked out. It means that I did it almost automatically, out of habit. April has already started, and I still do these sketches. I will do them until the sketchbook is full, and then maybe change the “task.”
Here I talk about the habit making challenge at length, I will be happy if you consider subscribing
At the end of 2024, I enrolled in a digital painting course, and its beginning in late March weirdly coincided with a new wave of AI art turmoil with a Studio Ghibli-style dataset arrival. It gives me such a strange cocktail of emotions. On the one hand, I really am afraid that my chances of earning money with art are getting slimmer, but on the other hand, the pure joy and satisfied exhaustion that I felt after painting digitally in the class were electrifying.
So many reference photos are stored on my phone and on my hard drives that I want to turn into paintings. I see an interesting play of light or an interesting situation—I snap a photo. Some of these are not even good photos. They are just a thought, but I want them to become full paintings and illustrations. There is something in me that wants to get out. I hope I survive this course and present you with my process and results.
It is WIP and I already know where I messed up, but I am so excited to be painting digitally, be sure I will share my progress with you as I go
And also, I host two sketch clubs now. I am still getting used to a new tempo, but it seems to be working fine. The first OG sketch club in Discord turned five years old at the end of March. I started it during the pandemic quarantine era. It is hard to believe it has been five years already. It is free to attend, as I see it as my service to the community. I host it on Thursdays at 2 p.m. CET. We do art together for 1.5 hours and talk art and share fears and hopes. If you are in need of art buddies, drop me a comment.
The other sketch club that I started recently is mostly for my Russian-speaking art folks who are currently in Russia and who face many problems with blocked services. For example, Discord doesn’t work in Russia anymore, and even VPNs are not very helpful. The payment is 5 euros per month, and we assemble in Zoom on Tuesdays, where I come up with ideas and mood boards. These meetings are a tiny bit more structured, and it is something new and interesting for me. I still don’t really teach, but rather guide and support. So if you are a Russian speaker and want to hop on, contact me in any social media or her in the comments, and I will give you a link to Boosty (which is the local version of Patreon). If you are outside of Russia but want to be a part of a Russian-speaking art club, there is a Buy Me a Coffee membership option as a way to get in.
So if you counted, it brings me to at least four events per week connected with art-making, plus daily sketches. And I am so, so, so happy. I am a very social animal, so group support helps me greatly. And I try to paint or sketch somewhere in between.
And now to my other news.
As you may know (or maybe not), I started playing Dungeons & Dragons (D&D for short) last August. The shortest explanation is that a bunch of people gathers around a table (real or virtual) and plays pretend that they are some mighty adventurers. There is a Dungeon Master, and there are players. Lately, D&D has had a revival thanks to Critical Role (and other D&D YouTube shows), games like Baldur’s Gate 3, and movies like Dungeons & Dragons. Also, COVID kind of helped develop more options for gaming remotely. For me, it is a blissful comeback to my sweet teenage years when I was introduced to D&D and Warhammer games. I cannot really describe properly what it means for me to play D&D today. Pure joy? Connecting with people? Escaping the world? Being my true self? Laughing so hard and feeling so intensely for four hours straight? I am just genuinely happy that one of my friends decided to become a Dungeon Master, and it seems that this role fits him nicely.
I also started watching Critical Role campaigns and learned that it is quite a world with various shows, characters, and stories. I knew of the guys for a long time, but it never occurred to me that I would enjoy watching. Now I do because it helps me pass the time between sessions of our campaign. But also, surprisingly, when I watch CR sessions, I calm down and concentrate, and I can work on editing or painting for long chunks of time without the distraction of my phone or social media. What a remedy.
Recently, I learned that Salvador Illa, president of Catalonia, ran the Barcelona marathon in 3 hours and 40-something minutes. Usually, that is the length of a CR episode. And I am like, I really want to do some sport, but I cannot really afford classes. What if I jog/run slowly and start building stamina for a marathon while listening to Critical Role? I had a dream of running a marathon for so many years. I even did 10km runs. I am rubbish and much older at the moment. But Salvador Illa is a government worker and 58 years old. Of course, he trained, and maybe it is his lifelong passion. No idea. But this weird brain of mine somehow made this into a strategy. Because I honestly just cannot make myself do sports lately. I guess parenting, the pandemic, and immigration brought me down to this survival mode both energy-wise and financially. But, but, but… how about I try?
And this is it for my March report. I hope your March was full of good things despite the state of the world.
best of everything,
Vera
What I was curious about in March?
Reading Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo, finally, such a joy. I devoured 150 pages in one day and now slowly savoring it. It is exactly what I imagined it to be. Next I will rewatch Shadow&Bone series but in Spanish. That’s the plan.
YouTube recommendation tap brought me The Goblin Hypothesis video essays from Curious Archive. The hell, it got me curious. It is a lovely video about our perception of goblins and why goblin mode? I am complete goblin core girl, so I had to watch it.
If you love those live bird cameras (I love the ones in the US with big eagles) here is something different. But also cute. These are the peregrine falcons who lay eggs not in just a tree but somewhere among the spires of Sagrada Familia herself. Yes, the Barcelona big one.
I am mesmerized with dagger brushes and I absolutely will try to get one.
This is rather long but very touching video from asskicking Laura Kampf of her journey from Germany to California with her dog. She moved to California herself, but she had to leave her dog behind for some time because reasons. I did it too, when we first moved to Turkey, my Jaina the dog was left behind in Moscow for more then a year without me. And it was such a joy to reunite with her when we finally moved to Spain.