Good routine & practices

There’s no one rule for how much time you should spend on a drawing! Over time, I’ve found a routine that works for me. I usually spend about 3-5 hours on one single drawing session – if I spend longer than that, I feel like my concentration runs out. I spend on average between 10 to 20 hours to make a detailed digital piece, divided into shorter sessions. On quicker speed sketches, I spend between 1 to 3 hours. Every artist draws at their own pace, so if you’re looking for the “right amount of time” to spend on a drawing, don’t worry too much about that! It’s different for everyone, and it can take a while to find out a formula that works for you.

This will be different for every artist and depends entirely on what your schedule allows! I draw quite regularly – about 2-4 times a week, although on some weeks I draw more than others. Since drawing is my work, I try not to draw on weekends or holidays – but sometimes I just feel inspired and I might doodle a bit in my downtime. However, I think it is incredibly important to take breaks and limit drawing hours to avoid strain injuries and burning out creatively! I’m only able to draw regularly if I don’t push myself past my limits, which is all about striking a balance and making sure I have a healthy relationship with my work. If you’re trying to figure out how often you should draw, try to find what works best for you and don’t compare yourself too much to other people.

Are you asking yourself whether you should draw every day? I personally I would not recommend it. It’s a lot of pressure and you run the risk of burning yourself out, or worse yet, straining your wrist and injuring yourself. I think that a healthy learning process involves more than just drawing. It also involves finding inspiration, getting rest, connecting with the art community, and giving yourself time to come up with ideas. There have been periods where I drew daily for a short while, but I don’t think it’s sustainable for longer periods of time. My recommendation is to draw regularly, but not daily – you need those breaks to recover and grow. For more information on what I consider to be a healthy routine for artists, check out my Patreon tutorial about creating an artistic routine!

Using reference is essential for any artist! I gather reference material for the majority of my artwork. Some of my drawings are studies in which I closely reference specific images to learn new techniques. Other drawings, like my digital paintings, are less dependent on specific reference images and result from a mix of different visual influences. This is because leaning on one reference image too heavily usually leads to a less stylized result, which is the opposite of what I want to achieve for my paintings. I try to depend more on my imagination for those, although I do use reference to elevate the details in the final stages.

If I’m struggling with the anatomy, I look for pose reference or take pictures of myself. For pose reference, my favorite source is Adorkastock. My favorite tool for creating a reference board is PureRef. To learn more about how I approach reference, check out my challenge resources on Patreon – I always take a moment to discuss my reference boards and how I diversify the images I include in them!

Learning how to draw anatomy accurately is a long process and is something you’ll get more comfortable with the longer you practice it. I learned how to draw anatomy by practicing both from memory and studying reference images. I often switched between the two so that my style would be a mix of realistic and cartoony.

Unfortunately I can’t recommend any books for learning anatomy, since I never used these kinds of resources myself, but I definitely recommend doing gesture sketches from reference as a way to improve your anatomy skills! Speed sketches are a great way to learn: try to capture the overall shape and movement before going into detail, since this helps you to understand the overall shapes and proportions. My free resource pack, Loish’s Digital Art School, includes a gesture sketching challenge that comes with reference images and tips – this is a great place to start if you want to practice gestures!

I believe there is a lot of inspiration to be found in our everyday lives! I get my inspiration from a mix of art I see online, the world around me, and interesting reference images that I find on Pinterest, Unsplash, or pose reference images like Adorkastock. One of my biggest sources of inspiration is nature, either in real life or through photographs. I often use pictures I take myself as a starting point for an illustration or study. For my digital paintings, I often get a ‘spark’ of inspiration from something I saw in my daily life which gives me an idea for a painting. I made a tutorial on this subject over on my Patreon for those who want to know more about how I take small, daily-life moments of inspiration and turn these into paintings!

For digital art, it’s important to start at a large resolution and downsize later for viewing on the web. This is essential to being able to make high-quality prints of digital work, and also ensures that the brush strokes don’t look pixellated. I often start with a canvas that is at least A3 format (300DPI) or larger, which is around 3500 x 5000 pixels. My suggestion to digital artists is to work at the maximum possible size that your device can handle, without it lagging or slowing down the computer!