Sticking to your drawing goals

Over the last two weeks, we've seen a sharp spike in global practice time, and in the number of people registering accounts as a flood of people make New Year's resolutions and start integrating art more fully into their daily lives. In fact, we've set some 7-day study time records for the site!

But we've also already starte to see a drop off as people's resolutions lapse. You might even be one of those people who is already starting to feel exhaustion creep in as the excitement of obtaining a year-long goal fades into the reality of the daily grind of earning those results.

To avoid your drawing goals becoming another forgotten resolution, here are some ideas for setting yourself up for success. Not all these ideas will work or make sense to every person, so find the ones that work for you and leave the rest. Have other ideas? Please, tell us in the comments so that everyone can benefit!

Find your why

Okay, so you've resolved to be better at drawing human anatomy (or whatever.) But what drew you to that resolution? What will you be able to do, achieve or express when you can beautifully render humans?

Maybe you chose your drawing goal because you want to be able to express a truth about your lived experience. Maybe you want to be able to show other people the things you can see in your mind's eye. Maybe you want to start or improve a career in art. Figure out why you chose that specific goal, why it is worth putting the time and effort in to achieve it.

Once you know why it's worth the effort, think about how you'll feel when you've achieved that goal -- both at the moment you realize you've mastered the skill you wanted to have, but also over the coming months and years when you apply that skill to creating your own works.

Then, on days where you are thinking about skipping your practice, think back to your why. It might not feel like a big deal to skip out on drawing some hands today, but would it be a big deal to prevent yourself from being able to create the web comic you've been brainstorming for three years now? Or to prevent yourself from becoming a freelance artist? Or to stop yourself from participating in a gallery showing next year?

Help yourself to prioritize your practice by knowing how that practice fits into the bigger picture. Be awesome to your future self.

Build reminders into your day

It might help to write down your goal, your "why," and how that goal will make you feel, and posting it up somewhere that you can see it every day. Put it on the ceiling over your bed, so it's the first thing you see when you open your eyes. Put it on your fridge, so you see it every time you go to get something to eat.

My favorite trick is to make my goal my computer's desktop image! If you have several goals, make them a desktop slideshow.

Need reminders on the go? Make your goals the background of your phone's lock screen.

If you're able to schedule emails, write yourself 4-6 letters about your goals and set them up to be delivered to you automatically throughout the year. Check in with your future self!

Want a simple reminder to practice every day? Sign up for push push notifications with us, and we'll send you a reminder at the time you pick. :)

Find community

Whether it's a single accountability buddy you check in with every week to report progress, or a whole forum or chatroom full of artists cheering you on, sometimes having other people involved in your goal can be very motivating.

Want an accountability buddy, or willing to be someone's accountability buddy? Go ahead and let us know in the comments; find new friends on Line of Action and use our private messaging system to check in with each other.

Want to become a part of the Line of Action community? Don't wait, go introduce yourself on our forums right now!

Ask your friends and family if they can check in with you once a week or once a month and provide a non-judgemental ear to listen to your progress, and provide encouragement to keep going. Put a coffee date on both your calendars right now, and make sure to schedule the next one before you leave that first one!

Make it smaller

If you've set yourself a large goal, it can be daunting and discouraging! Each day that you sit down to practice, find the smallest possible part of your goal that you can work on today. Give yourself micro-goals, and achieve throughout the year, not just at the very end or at specific milestones. See our article on this topic: Focused practice: an exercise for real improvement in 33 days

Every day that you practice is a victory, so congratulate yourself on the small stuff too!

Make it essential

Instead of letting your goal be another thing that you "have" to do, reframe how you think of it to be an essential part of your lifestyle.

You can't skip feeding yourself. You wouldn't stop taking the dog out when it needed to potty. Consider nourishing your own creative self a foundational part of your day too, instead of something you just squeeze in if you can.

Plus, if you manage to make drawing something that you do every day instead of just a couple of times a week, you are much more likely to turn it into a habit -- and habits are so much easier to maintain, because you have to think about them much less!

Keep going back

There may be days, weeks, even months during the year where you fail to stick with your goal. If you realize this has happened to you, use that awareness as a queue to gently bring yourself back to your goal. Pick up where you left off.

Stopping for a month doesn't mean that you failed. It isn't a sign that the endeavor was doomed. It doesn't mean that you aren't good enough or strong enough to stick with it. Don't give it any more power in your mind! Just pick it up again and continue on. As many times as you need to.

Remember: Practice makes progress! Keep giving yourself the gift of opportunities for progress, over and over and over again, even if they aren't all in a row.

Do you have strategies for sticking with and achieving artistic goals? Please, share them in the comments to help others!

Commentaires

Lily Kato

I am a university student, so of course, I have a lot of struggle with exams every semester. I'm sure you all know this but it's very important to make smaller goals that you can keep up with, so when I have to prepare for an exam, I look at my calendar, see how many days I have left, and make a plan of how much work I need to do each day to be done in time. I then take a piece of paper, and draw little boxes, that I can color in once I've completed my goal for the day. I think this is a great thing to do, becaus as small as it looks, it somehow gives this sense of achievement, and you can also keep tract of what you've done so far.

Njp

this is a really good idea - thank you for sharing it.

Lily Kato

You are welcome, I hope it helps!

Winnie Deng (unregistered visitor)

drawing body

dilsanto

Bom,eu gosto muito de desenhar e escrever,por isso quero muito me desenvolver no desenho da figura humana para poder criar meus próprios personagens. Poder desenhar da imaginação,do nada...desenhar qualquer coisa sem uma ajuda de referências ou coisa parecida. Aos poucos a gente vai adquerindo o hábito do desenho,a prática leva à evolução!

Sassiilustra

É isso aí! Com essa linha de pensamento, pode ter certeza que tudo isso você vai conseguir realizar. Aos poucos, essas metas vão fazer parte do seu estilo de vida e vão ser tão naturais que o hábito já estará lá fazendo parte do seu cotidiano. Sucesso pra ti!

Jorge Ortiz (unregistered visitor)

Estoy muy interesado el el dibujo de figura humana con modelo vivo apenas comienzo en esta practica , ya que solo las imagenes solo las habia sacado de otras paginas pero este sitio o pagina me resulto muy util y me esta permitiendo ver hasta donde voy progresando por favor dejen segui en este sitio es muy interesante y dd mucha ayuda para mi por favor dejenlo para mi

Sanne - Modérateur du site

We're glad it's been useful to you! We're hoping to be around for a long time so you can continue practicing your drawing skills, no worries. :) Good luck on your art journey!

Dahlia 327

I've always struggled with being consistent and on track. I think it's mostly because I do this on my own. There aren't people who are behind me pushing me to reach my goal, so it has always felt like it wasn't worth reaching sometimes. I think for me if I just have someone to remind me of how important my goa is to my I would have made it by now.

Dvys

Same here. It's hard to do it that's why i'm trying to keep a reminder on my phone about it. It's not the best but it helps

Jimmysonne

Hi I'm having the same problem of doing things on my own so now I'm looking for an accountability buddy, message me if you're interested. :)

Nori (unregistered visitor)

I'm trying to learn how to draw properly and to draw proper human forms, It's very hard to break my habits but by breaking it all down into small daily tasks I've been able to show real improvement :)

Coolcaty4

I am having trouble finding the right shape of the legs. For some reason I can draw the top but not the bottom. Any advice?

Ls 1996

我是学习过画画的,但是最近对于绘画总是画不下去,感谢这个平台,我将继续保持!!

Brettinabox

Dealing with Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD), it's been a struggle to focus on drawing when it doesn't have all the bells and whistles that video games or something that would change constantly does. But, and this is something I have encountered a few times, when I can lock in that mode where I am engaged and stuff is clicking, it's relaxing and I want more of it. I am typing this even now to encourage myself to try to draw more often, even with social media, friends, and worrying about things not pertaining to drawing.

Manarioca

Right now my only goal is drawing every day. But not random, My focus is drawing body and now I am execising head proportion first.

乳糖不耐受

虽然完全不懂英语,每次都要借着翻译网站才能看懂文字,但是我希望我能坚持下去,加油!!!

Yuxin Zhang

救,我也是!在翻译途中遇见了久违的中文哈哈哈(挠头ing)

Feixiang

画画和英文一起练习

Polyvios Animations

My current goal is to develop and refine my personal drawing style of sketching out my animal forces, gestures, and acting.

Polyvios Animations

Ori Concept Arts

My Strategy is to have a goal that I want to bring to life. knowing that every practice , every challenge is a step closer to getting the skills to achieve that goal and taking 30 min off my day to put on some twitch/discord/music and do a sketching session is not a hard routine to maintain.

Over time even such small practice builds skill, the key is to keep it up, same with code, same with 3d and physical fitness.
Most important is to have hope for the future to help conquer the loneliness and be fulfilled.
Now , I'm off to do LD49

佛余 (unregistered visitor)

我不知道如何表达,但我喜欢画画,我想与画相伴一身

Shiyo Engle

My current goal is to have better fluidity in my drawings of humans, so I'm focusing on the gesture drawing of humans to help me really get the feeling of movement in my drawings and to be able to convey that successfully.

Paytinne (unregistered visitor)

recently ive been very interested in WC (warrior cats) so ive been wanteing to draw cats and make my own ocs out of them! this site has helped me so much in such little time, i will continue to use it and learn as much as i can!

Caio (unregistered visitor)

Hrhe

Chucky68

i am approving in my drawings, but its the photoshop that's not clicking with me....

林小果 (unregistered visitor)

坚持就是胜利

Yuxin Zhang

Haha, I'm a lazy guy. As you can see, there are no good tips to keep practicing every day, but I want to share some of my feelings. The most important thing for me to draw is to bring happiness and enjoyment. The process of recording or creating beauty is beautiful. (I have loved painting since I was a child, but I have never had the opportunity to study it) Thank you for giving me the opportunity to learn more about painting and communicate with people who are painting.

sarvesh (unregistered visitor)

iwann learn drawing

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