For all of 2020, I have been doing a daily drawing. Sometimes complex, sometimes simple, these drawings have been had a mix of themes and have kept me on my toes all year. As I hit the half-way mark of my drawings for the year, I figured I’d take a moment to reflect on one of my favourite parts of my daily drawings: Patreon Suggestion Week!
The last week of the month, I draw based on suggestions from the amazing people who donate to me every month on Patreon. These kind and supportive folks are a big part of the reason that I’ve been able to be a full-time artist. Every little bit helps when it comes to paying for bills, art supplies, and food! As a thank you, I create something based on their suggestions.
This featured week was a lot of fun, working on variations of a few suggestions and really taking the time to enjoy myself in creating some pieces that you all enjoy seeing as much as I did creating. I thought it might be fun to make a few notes about each one.
Let’s Talk Drawings – One by One
For the first one, I was asked for urban landscapes reclaimed by nature and I drew something based on a railroad in Berlin. I actually revisited this theme of nature reclaiming urban settings in the fifth picture as well. That one was based off of a photo from Hong Kong.
The suggestion for picture two was just “rose glasses” and I have to say that was probably my favourite one to draw out of the whole week! It wasn’t the only portrait that I did.
Picture four is character Death from the graphic novel Sandman. This is a book I’ve been meaning to read, partly because I was told that I look like Death. I used to dress a lot more goth and even wore a large ankh! But besides the clothing, her face does look eerily similar to mine. And weirder still, this isn’t the first time this exact scenario has happened. The artist Victoria Frances also paints a character called Death/Angelique who looks like me. It was so weird to see myself in a painting by a stranger across the world.
This story is really hopping all over, but that’s okay. Picture three was fun, but I definitely put more thought into it than I expected. I was asked for “something to do with lightbulbs?” Sometimes with such broad prompts, I spend way too much time thinking about what to draw. There are so many options, and I feel I need to do something clever. Such it was with this. Until eventually it was getting late, and I thought, I just gotta draw “something with lightbulbs,” and so I did.
Finally, there are pictures six and seven. These weren’t actually based on patron suggestions! I had run out of suggestions from the proverbial hat, and so my partner David offered a suggestion. He wanted some “copy” tokens that he could use while playing the card game Magic: The Gathering. Even though he’s not one of my patrons on Patreon, I figured I’d give him a pass. It’s been four months since I became a full-time artist and he has been incredibly supportive and helping me out along the way with the business side of things.
Let me know if you’d like to see more daily drawing wrap-up blogs. If you’re interested in becoming a patron yourself, and leaving me some suggestions for next month, be sure to check out my Patreon page and if you want to commission something unique of your very own, you can find out about my Art Commissions. Thanks so much for your support!