We've finally reached that magic number marking an entire year's worth of entries. Hence,. It's now time to see if anything has been accomplished, and where we're heading in the future. What resolutions can be teased from a proper look into the past.
First of all though, I'd like to note that the doodles in this week's post are all drawings of characters in the game Anna's Quest. I didn't design them, but I liked the way they're drawn so wanted to get my hand making similar shapes.
Anyway…
I love statistics and bodies of work that do more than represent a single moment in time. The interesting thing to me is looking at a big pile of data, and finding meaning from the collective sum of it all. It's kind of why I started this weekly thing without really knowing what I wanted to get out of it, as I knew that once enough time had passed, the aggregate would reveal itself.
Of course, I wanted an excuse to remind myself to draw regularly, and there are some simple results that have come from that experience. The most obvious is how much I enjoy doodling with ink pens instead of pencils. I discovered this early on in the year and have done nothing but pen doodling ever since.
What I used to do with pencil was to spend way too much time on little elements of what should be a quick drawing. Being able to shade and use different line weights and pressure, actually meant that I would draw less, because I'd always expect a better outcome. The joy of using ink and pens, is that there's no chance to redeem yourself, so you either have to plan well or just accept the mistakes. It's a fantastic reminder that limitations can often be inspiring and liberating.
However, there's a double edged sword that came up behind the scenes each week, which was simultaneously good and bad in the long run. The good side was that it definitely motivated me to draw more often and put pen to paper more regularly then I was used to. Before this I'd do things in spurts, maybe spending a couple of days on something big, then not doing anything else for weeks. So the process has given me opportunity and permission to do something stupid and simple more frequently.
A big part of this has been the expectation that these are only doodles, so they're probably always going to be simple, and shit. I don't think aiming to create something terrible is a good idea, but allowing a creation to be terrible has been quite valuable. Looking back over all the doodles I've posted shows just how simple and ordinary things can be at time, but as a whole I feel satisfied.
The bad side of this schedule has been that I didn't keep the schedule as I would have liked. I don't mean when posts were made, as many have been posted late, but that's simply due to real life keeping me busy and being a much higher priority. What I mean is that in an ideal world, I would have liked to draw each doodle at a different time throughout the week. This would mean I'm drawing every other day or so, instead of the reality that ended up being once a week.
It's still an improvement on the previous rhythm, but instead of drawing small things more often, I ended up drawing all the small drawings at once. I've ended up in a routine of spending an hour or two drawing a handful of doodles to post, and putting it aside until another week has passed. So I haven't really fixed the schedule frequency, even though I've managed to improve it from where it started.
Those are the main things I've learned (on a practical level) over the last 52 weeks, which may not seem like much, but it's enough to inform the future. I've also taken a lot from exploring the more theoretical side of creativity, and its relationship with our wider experience of reality, but that's all a bit esoteric, which has had a different impact.
In fact, I think I'm a bit tired of tangents and theory, but I'm glad to have gone through the exercise of analysing concepts. I definitely feel like I firmer grasp on how to maximise creative potential and productivity, after spending so many posts considering the implications of available options. What I don't like though, is how far from the practical application of creative process all this theorising ends up going. Of course everything is connected, so any discussion on the nature of reality and environment will impact process, but I think I'd like to tighten the lens a little.
Thus, I have a plan for future posts, which involves some definitive changes to the format we're now so used to seeing. Namely, the schedule will be adapted to motivate higher frequency over quality; while the theoretical discourse will be replaced with practical reflection and analysis.
To put it simply, I now aim to draw something every day, no matter how simple, small, ordinary, banal, or plain it may be. Rather than spending a couple of hours a week all at one, I aim to spend at least a few minutes each day making some marks on paper. The expectation is that some days I will have time and be motivated to draw a lot, while other days could yield nothing more than a smiley face.
The point is that I'll label everything for whatever day of the week it was drawn on, then split them into days for each week's post. The idea then is to write at least a sentence about each day that relates the drawing to the process.
It could be as simple as stating that a simple doodle on a Thursday was thanks to being super busy and having no time. It could be that another simple doodles was the result of hours in front of a blank page, with no inspiration to draw anything at all. Ultimately though, there could also be opportunities where paragraphs could be written about the collection of drawings that I was compelled to create thanks to another day's circumstance.
I feel like the benefit of this format will be two-fold, as not only will it motivate and push me to draw more frequently; it will also keep the discussion focused on the doodles and the circumstances that led to their process of creation. I really like the idea of keeping the focus simple and tight, rather than indulging the tangents of the past year.
To be clear though, I'm not promising that I'll draw something every single day; only that I'll try. My aim is to have a minimum of six doodles to share each week: one a day from Monday to Saturday. I tend to write and scan these posts on Sundays, so I'll give myself the day off to think about words instead.
Hopefully it will all make sense next week when I kick off this new format and get the ball rolling. More importantly though, I hope it brings a bit of twist to the weekly posts and provides something different and interesting to look at.
As a final note, I was debating whether or not to share some analytics of traffic and readership for this blog, but I'm not going to assume that everyone loves statistics as much as I do. Hence, I will simply say thanks to everyone who has been reading and interacting with both these posts and the gaming posts. It's always reassuring to see the numbers in the back-end, which tell a clear tale of who's having a gander… so cheers for sticking around all year!