Bit by Bit

If you feel like you're not making progress, you're not looking in the right places.

In the last calendar year, I think it’s safe to say my drawing skills did not improve. They may have even gotten worse … I seriously can’t tell.

If I evaluated my year as an artist, or more importantly, as a PERSON, based on this one metric, I would be doing myself a gross disservice.

But it’s easy to fall into this trap. Looking at drawings I did a year or two ago, I see a lot of better choices, easier handling of difficult technical challenges, and so on. Getting through a drawing and finding my way to a satisfying result was often a struggle over the past 365 days.

To not investigate and explore the reasons for this stagnation, or even regression, is a mistake everyone makes from time to time. You see the result, you feel like you failed, and simply stop there.

And what are you left with? Feelings of disappointment, despondency, and defeat.

The simple fact is that you cannot cover all the bases at all times in your life; if you notice an extended pause on progress in one area, this almost always means that you experienced meaningful growth elsewhere.

Last August, I moved to Germany. I didn’t speak the language. Now, I can get through ordering a meal, basic transactional conversations in shops, navigating public transportation, and other bits and pieces. Could I have learned more? Sure, but it’s important for me to acknowledge this growth.

New home, new environment, new rules and regulations. New school for our kids, new challenges as parents, new social network to navigate and nourish. New healthcare system, new financial complications (we STILL haven’t finished our 2023 tax returns because of the mid-year international move and all that entails!), new unexpected expenses …

New everything.

You think it’s easy to make friends as a late-40’s male in a foreign country with a language barrier? It’s hard enough back home. Men are terrible at this and a lot has already been written on this topic, so I won’t go into all the details. Happily, I find myself now with a couple of ‘real’ friends in town, some good dinner parties under my belt, a regular tennis partner, and some you-might-be-a-guy-I-can-hang-out-with-regularly possibilities on the horizon.

And on the creative side? My drawings may not have improved, but let’s look at the growth in another area: I can confidently say I crushed it with brushes.

Even before joining Procreate, I did some of the best work of my life on the digital brush front this past year, creating the default brushes for Express, four quarterly brush updates for Photoshop, and a few special one-offs.

And now that I have a new brush engine to play with, I have been on an absolute tear, barely able to keep track of all the exciting ideas I have, and building some of my favorite brushes ever since visiting the Procreate team in Tasmania. If you follow me on Instagram, you have probably seen some previews of my latest experiments and I hope you’re looking forward to drawing and painting with these new tools. I am impatient to get them out into the world.

By noticing how much I have grown as a parent, a new resident of a foreign country, and a brush-maker, I can easily understand why growth in other areas, like drawing skill, just wasn’t possible. In fact, this actually gives me new appreciation for completing a few good drawings, at all, amidst the other things I had to figure out over the past twelve months.

🌟I encourage all of you to do the same exercise. If you see things slow down in your creative life in some way, there is a good chance you’re growing and improving elsewhere. With a little self-reflection, you can identify these areas; notice them, celebrate them, and give yourself some props.🌟

And keep rolling.

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Take care of yourselves, take care of each other, remember to be kind, and I’ll say, Ciao for now. - Kyle

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Resources

• Trying to get through a long-term creative project? This conversation about how to successfully do this is excellent.

• I am embarrassed to say that I waited a long time to download Procreate Dreams (downloaded it in early July). Why did I wait? If you have even the slightest interest in animation, and you own an iPad, go download it now. The app completely reinvents how an animation app works. It’s addictive.

• I’m proud to once again be an affiliate with Sarah Watts, who is beginning a new session of her popular course for people who want to create pattern art for licensing and products. While much of the course focuses on Photoshop workflows, you can apply the bulk of the techniques and workflows to Procreate and other digital art apps.