I follow a number of artists' personal sketch blogs and one of my favorites is that of Michael Nobbs. Michael is a British artist living in Wales who is also a kind of "creativity consultant." He is disabled by an auto-immune disorder so he has had to learn to do his art and consulting in strategic small measures of time rather than the thirty-hour crazed marathons of younger and more energetic artists. Nobbs teaches an art way that sets pre-measured pieces of time, 20 minutes each, and then resting after that. He recommends using a timer but a smartphone's time-set alarm app will do the trick. When the artist rests up, they can plot another 20 minutes later on if they're up for it.
This strategy is excellent even for people who are not sick or disabled. If you have a job, or are raising kids, or have someone to look after, you don't have much time for art but almost anyone can find 20 minutes to do a sketch or lay down a few paragraphs. You won't become a screaming success following this way, but you might get some simple satisfaction that you did something creative.
Nobbs likes to draw sketches of ordinary objects and make them interesting. Here's one of my Nobbs-ian drawings. Can you figure out what it is? Twenty minutes ago this sketch didn't exist.
Black tech pen ink on sketchbook page, about 4 1/2" x 4", April 6, 2017. Step up for the answer.
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