Developing simple schedule for your art practice!

Practice. It's a constant struggle with yourself. There are plenty of distractions and it's in our interest to stay sane, focused and do what we want to do. That's the only way to improve. So I found that even though I'm not attending to any art school at this particular time I want to take advantage of its qualities. Focused discipline. Another name - schedule. Let's try and make one.


I feel like my practice is kind of fuzzy and distracted. I do not mean the process but the subject of practice itself. While drawing I'm worried that I'm not doing what I'm supposed to do and probably I'm closing in my comfort zone. And I think the solution lies in making schedule. Manageable schedule.

Yes, I tried to make a schedule before. And yes, I failed to follow it. Why? Because I was too ambitious. I was setting goals I couldn't achieve. Too many working hours, too many subjects to work on. And that is only deepens our plateau, isn't it? Think of it as it will be your lunch. You want tasty one. Not too salty, not too spicy. Also - your stomach wants to be full. So I have to be smart for a second. Let's try.

Some anatomy stuff from yesterday. Working on Bridgeman.

I think developing schedule only for the next week will be manageable for me. I'm not sure what can really happen after, so I will make new one next week. My goals and needs can also change, so I will be able to adjust schedule to it. So - seven days. Now let's think about hours. Everyone know that part of yourself. How many hours can I focus on one particular subject? Does it bore me after that? What about eating that day? Will I have time for that? OK, back to scheduling. My goal is to devote five hours a day to my art skills development. High five. Try to find your number.

Subject. Let's brake it into nice bricks. What can I study? What can I work on? So these are the bricks: Perspective, Human Anatomy, Composition, Material Studies, Animal Anatomy, Still Life/Life drawing, Industrial Design, Experimentation. Of course you can create new ones according to your needs. I've decided that every brick is two hours block when I work as consistent as I can on one particular subject. I have five hours per days so I can pick just two blocks and work on them. One hour left. That's the minimum daily sketching time. I got used to taking my sketchbook everywhere and draw what I see or what I imagine, so I don't think that will be a problem.

Now, place your bricks on the timeline. But... Which bricks? Oh, and there I go. Strike for weakness. Be brutal about it. Hate drawing hands? Put anatomy brick. Draw one hundred of them in two hours. Your composition sucks? Composition brick. Master study for two hours. Ask yourself these questions. Destroy your comfort-zone with that bricks. And so will I.

So this is my schedule. Starts from tomorrow.

I'm sharing with you .PSD file with whole schedule. You can change whatever you want and keep sharing it. Just pick an amount of hours that you can devote to practice daily, pick the number of hours for one brick and place them on schedule (choose brick form brick folder then hit CTRL+J and move it with move tool). Print it out and make it your religion for just one week. Think about it as a science experiment. Keep track on things you do, be accurate. If you are failing to follow it - adjust and start again.

Download on Resources page.

This is my plan to make some progress. This week focusing heavly on perspective and anatomy. I will post my practice stuff on the blog so you can see how the whole schedule works. I hope you can make use of that method. But remember - I'm not really any authority. I will be pleasured to see your own schedule and hear any comments from you.

Cheers!