The daily sketch. Some of you may remember when I started this venture. I made up my mind as 2013 was coming to a close. If I want to improve as an artist, then I need to perfect my craft. The only way to do that is to take one positive step every day. The old saying goes, ‘Practice makes perfect’. The same holds true in any profession, hobby, sport, craft. If you want to be good, you have to practice. Take that one positive step every day. You can take more, but at least one step towards your goal is crucial if you want to improve. So in my case, a daily sketch was my commitment.

I had seen, and been a fan of artist Kenneth Rocafort on Facebook for quite some time. I first took notice of his daily sketch posts and admired how he could do these quite detailed (and colored) sketches every single day.

Artwork by Kenneth Rocafort

I also noticed that the sketchbooks he used had blank pages AND dates. I thought that these dated pages might help keep me accountable to doing a daily sketch myself. I searched high and low for a book such as this (blank pages with dates) with no luck. I finally resorted to asking the man himself. He was kind enough to point me in the right direction, which was online to Barnes & Noble and even gave me the link for the product. Moleskine 2″x4″. When the book came in the mail, I was a little surprised at how small it was. Don’t ask me why. I knew the dimensions when I bought it. But to hold it in my hand, I thought…”Where’s the rest of it??” Ah well, smaller pages should be faster to fill up, right?

Moleskine 12M Planner Daily Extra Small Black

Not so fast! It might be for some. But for artists like me who get caught up in the details, even small sketches take some time. They were intended to be sketches (30-45 minutes)…loose drawings, not so detail heavy. I found it very difficult to leave my sketches so “undone”. And while they may have taken more time than I had planned (1-2 hours), I did stick with it for all of 2014. I surprised my friends and family. But most of all, I surprised myself. In all my years, I have never drawn daily. Through some periods of my life, months would go by. Not doing some kind of art daily drained me. I felt creatively stagnant. In addition, I knew my skills were stagnating. How could I profess to be an artist when I only drew occasionally?

At the same time, I had been taking classes and workshops on how to make it as an artist or an entrepreneur. Every single time…and I do mean EVERY single time, they stressed doing one thing, taking at least one step towards your goal every day. This was something that I ignored for years! I watched while others succeeded. Others who were taking that one positive step towards their goals every day. I was forced to come to the conclusion that taking that daily step must work. My way obviously wasn’t effective. And so I made it through the 2014 daily sketch challenge. I even started 2015 and made it through April. That’s about when commissions and personal projects started picking up. I had to let the daily sketch go, but with my other projects lining up, I was still taking that daily step in the right direction.

I will readily admit to being a convert. I have seen the error of my lackadaisical ways. Occasionally doing something towards your end goal isn’t effective. Doing the daily sketch or whatever that one positive step is for you is a powerful tool, not just in strengthening your skills, but in strengthening your character and discipline in regards to your craft. I am even thinking down the line of posting a daily drawing challenge. It can be a daily sketch as I’ve done in my little teeny sketchbooks or adding daily to a much larger work. I’ll be working out the details and hope to post the challenge soon.

To see more of Kenneth’s work, visit him on Facebook or Instagram or his website.