On 2nd May 2020, I decided to start a new project - draw something every day for a year. 365 days later, I completed the project, and these are some of my learnings and realizations.
As expected, my drawing skills levelled up - In comparison with last year's drawing, there is a massive improvement in colour usage and overall line quality.
The average time taken to go from the ideation stage to a presentable or decent state decreased drastically. The latest illustrations have more details compared with last year's.
As I progressed through this project, drawing something every day acted as fuel for all other day-to-day activities. It is much easier to enter the flow state now.
This project allowed me to experiment with different styles of illustration. I now understand what style works for me and the areas that require improvement.
On the flip side of things, there is burnout - I almost lost interest in drawing altogether. Some days I drew just for the sake of doing it, which had an overall negative effect.
And yes, I did cheat on few days. By cheating, I mean tracing over images from Unsplash or Pexels, as I was completely out of creative juice to come up with an idea or do the initial sketch.
Other projects and personal time took a hit. On average, I spend 1-2 hours daily on this project, which means very little time left for other stuff.
Limited social media attention - 97% of the posts performed poorly on Instagram, where I did the daily posting. From the start of the project till now, I gained 80+ followers, and most of them were friends :)
And that summarizes this project. Thank you for taking the time to read through my experience.
You can find the entire drawing set on my Pinterest board.