How to Best Use Your Drawing Time When You’re in a Busy Chapter of Life (Patreon)

Hello lovelies,

I recently had a request from our lovely community member Anna to share some advice about how to best use your drawing time when you’re in a busy season of life and your time for art is limited but you still have art goals you want to work towards.

So I have a few tips to make it easier to focus your art time when it's limited, and if you have any questions or would like some more specific advice, feel free to leave me a comment below!

1. Find your focus

If you have a goal that you’re working towards but don’t know the first steps to get there, take some time to work backwards from your end goal to where you are now and break down the steps in between.

If you want to illustrate children’s picture books, then you’ll want to be able to draw characters, environments, and tell visual stories with them. Each of those topics will take time to practise, so you could break down each of those things into smaller pieces that you could practise one at a time.

For example, to draw characters, you might want to practise drawing humans, animals, expressions and poses. To draw environments you might want to practise home interiors, garden scenes and forests. And for visual storytelling you might practise scenes where characters interact with something, and then practise recreating your favourite picture book pages in your own style.

Once you understand the topics you want to work on, you can choose one at a time to research and practice in any pockets of time that you can find for your art.

Start at the simplest, easiest point for you and work upwards from there. Take your time watching tutorials and becoming comfortable with each topic, even if it means that some days you only have time for research and don’t get to spend time on your art - it’s all good progress.

I also love making moodboards for inspiration, so if you find yourself somewhere with 10 minutes to spend on your phone, search Pinterest for art or tutorials relating to your topic to make a nice inspiration moodboard that will be ready for your next art session.

2. Small steps are still progress

It might not feel like a 15 minute art session is worthwhile, but every small step is progress towards your goal. If it takes 20 hours to learn how to do something, then even with just 15 minutes a day you’ll get there in less than 3 months.

That might feel like a long time, but slow progress is better than no progress, and sometimes progress is slow because you’re working on so many other amazing things at the same time and it’s important not to forget that. You might only have 15 minutes a day because you’re also raising a family, supporting yourself with full-time work, looking after loved ones, or studying at university. 

It’s amazing that you’re also wanting to work towards an art goal, and it’s ok if that takes a little longer than you’d like because of your other priorities.

Any amount of time that you can use to research tutorials, find inspiration or make art is all great progress and should be celebrated!

3. Make it as easy as possible

If you’re in a busy chapter of life right now you probably don’t have a lot of energy to spare, so it’s important to make your art as easy, accessible and enjoyable as possible.

Try to reduce the hurdles to being able to actually sit down and play with your art supplies.

Have them somewhere easy to access, and in a place where you actually want to hang out. Put on your favourite music, an art tutorial, or your comfort TV show in the background, and make it an inviting activity.

If it feels like a struggle, or if you don’t know what to draw, you’ll be much more likely to not sit and draw at all, so it’s worth taking some time to set up a space in your house where you can make art, or set up a little art supplies bag that you can easily carry along to wherever you’d like to draw today. 

This is where it’s also really helpful to have a prompt list of drawing ideas already made, or an art topic that you’re focusing on right now to take away the guesswork of what you’ll be drawing.

4. It’s never a waste of time

When you don’t have much time for your art, it can feel like you need to create something good for it to be worthwhile. That’s adding unhelpful pressure to your art practice, and it’s not fair to expect yourself to already be good at what you’re learning.

Every time you sit and make some art - especially when you’re tired from other responsibilities - you’re choosing to show up for something you want to improve on. You’re choosing to work towards something in your future, when it would be easier to do nothing. 

So it’s never a waste of time to sit and draw something, even if you don’t like what you drew, even if you only had 10 minutes and didn’t get to finish it, because it’s always worthwhile to show up for ourselves and make small steps towards our goals.

Be kind to yourself during this busy time, and let go of any pressure or expectations you might find yourself applying to your art. 

I hope you found these tips helpful if you're in a busy chapter of life right now but still making time for your art, please let me know if you'd like some more specific tips on what you could focus on or would like some 10 minute drawing ideas!

💖 Mimi