How did my illustration journey all began? It started with an iPad Pro, a gift from my hubby (Kenny, the other half of See You See Me). This sparked off a dream and a life that I didn’t think would be possible. (And this is not a sponsored blogpost by Apple by the way.)

I would have never imagined myself as an illustrator and to be able to do what I’m doing now. I was working as a graphic designer in the advertising industry, and had been doing so for nearly 15 years. I’ve always admired and loved art and illustrations. But I hadn’t picked up a paint brush since my last art lesson as a kid in school. My best attempts to draw, at that point, was with a pen and a notebook, accompanied by some minimal colouring on Photoshop. I would call these my random doodles. I wanted to experiment, to see what I could do. To see if there was something I could use for my work or commercially.

Looking back, it didn’t quite work out. These little A5-sized cards were created just for fun. But I don’t think they were good enough to amount to anything.

By default, my mindset then was fixated on how a good drawing or painting had to look realistic, like those you see in museums or like a photograph. All the drawing tools and materials felt really daunting to me. I couldn’t imagine the amount of materials that I’ll be wasting and the mess that I’d have created, even before producing a decent looking piece of work. To all those who think you can’t draw, I feel you. It takes great practice and technique to be able to draw something/someone that looks as though like you’re looking at a photograph. It’s a very special talent and skill. But sadly for me, this was not my talent, and it was this very thought that took away the joy from me to truly enjoy drawing.

Having the iPad Pro however, accompanied by the Procreate app, changed my life. I didn’t need to worry if I was wasting too much paper or materials. Should I learn watercolour, pastels, or simply use pencils to begin with? Well, the Procreate app has so many different types of tools for you to choose from. And I could start to experiment more, to learn something new and to try them all out. For those of you who don’t know about Procreate, it’s a drawing app. To me, it’s like Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator combined. Check out Procreate if you want to find out more.

Ok, I digress, back to my illustration journey. I started with no specific plan in mind, my main aim was to learn how to draw with Procreate on the iPad Pro. It was not easy at the beginning. Just getting used to a “Pencil” that wasn’t a physical pencil, and the glass display of the iPad Pro was difficult enough. It made me so uncomfortable and conscious of the surface that I could barely would even rest my hand on the screen when I drew. However, the pros of this new medium soon outweigh the cons. I learnt I could do so much more through my new device. The (almost) unlimited “undos” that I had through the app also gave me a new boldness to draw freely (nothing I drew could go “wrong”). So I started to love it and began drawing more and more. Until one day, and it was an impromptu decision, in 2017, I decided I wanted to challenge myself to keep drawing. And having read about the 10,000-hour rule, I wanted to do something to push myself to get even better at this. So I started my very own 365 Day Project on Instagram — A Drawing A Day.

365 DAY PROJECT ON INSTAGRAM —
A Drawing A Day

When I first started, I didn’t think anyone would care or even bother to look at my drawings and posts. But slowly, I started noticing that I had a handful of followers. I then felt accountable to this invisible audience of mine, I knew that there were at least some “friends” online, who were watching and supporting me. The algorithm on Instagram was also much friendlier to content creators back then. (Oh, Instagram, why have you changed so much? But this is a discussion for another day. Sorry, I digress again.😅)

Ironically, after posting my very first “Set Sail” post — the post that was meant to symbolize the launch of this project — things then became not as smooth sailing as I’d have liked them to be. I remember very vividly that on Day 10, I wanted to give up. I had no idea where this project was leading to. And how I was going to keep going for another 355 days!

Long story short, I’m thankful for an encouraging hubby, who believed in me (Kenny saved the day). He simply told me not to give up, he encouraged me on how I can learn to plan and how to come up with ideas for my illustrations. And more importantly, to enjoy the journey and what I’m doing, and to see how things unfold.

So after overcoming Day 10, it felt like a small victory. But still there were challenges. And the biggest one yet was — self-doubt! If you haven’t realized by now, you’re often your worst enemy. And I struggled with this too. There was this relentless nagging voice in my head that went on and on. Making me question what I was doing and whether my 365 Day Project was going anywhere. I had so many questions in my head, so much so that I could make a list!

MY TOP 10 SELF-DOUBT QUESIONS

This Procreate app is too difficult, you won’t be able to learn it on your own.
You won’t get anything out of this, you’re simply wasting your time.
You call these illustrations? A 3 year-old kid can draw better than you.
What’s the point of this challenge? No one will be interested in what you share.
What if you give up halfway? Why don’t you stop now, to avoid further disappointment?
You won’t be able to finish such a difficult challenge.
Are you sure this is good enough to post on social media?
There’re so many illustrators out there, one challenge like this won’t get you anywhere near to what they’ve already achieved.
What’s next after the 365 days?
You’ll never be good enough.

Do these sound familiar to you? Or am I the only one questioning myself? Even till this day, these moments still come back to haunt me from time to time, or on bad days. So if you’re struggling with these thoughts about your illustrations, you’re not alone. I’m no therapist or wellness expert, but I found the way to silent these nagging thoughts and questions is to learn to park them aside, and to go with what you believe in and had planned on doing, or in this case, drawing. There’s a saying, “What you feed grows, what you starve dies,” — if I don’t continue to question myself, I’ll be fine. And instead of feeding my self-doubt, I turned to dreaming of what I’d want to draw or achieve instead.

Day 9 of #365DayProject (Quote from Lisa Bevere)

“I dream of painting and then I paint my dream.”
– Van Gogh

I was nothing close to painting my dream like Van Gogh, but it was a good start for me — to start learning how to paint my dream. This became how I kept my 365 Day Project going.

Day 23 of #365DayProject (Quote from Landa Cope)

My 365 Day Project was made up of random combinations of dreaming, of imagined characters, spaces, of daily life, my travels and people-watching, basically anything that came to my mind there and then. As much as how my ideas may sound random, that was exactly my state of my mind at that point of my life. Now that I’m recalling and looking back. I was picking up on things from the music I was listening to, highlighting quotes from the books I read, remembering scenes from the movies I watched, or the places that I traveled to. Because I needed something to inspire me to draw every day, I became more and more aware of the things around me. This was what was helping me dream and to think of new ideas and inspiration for my drawings. This also taught me not to take the small and insignificant things around me for granted. They could all be inspiration for a new drawing or idea.

From dreaming and drawing everyday, I began to come up with lots of different themes. Or series that I can base my drawing on.

Here are some of my favourite themes from the project.

Alone Series

Juxtaposing people with larger-than-life daily objects.

Surprise Momentums

Playing with similar shapes to form a pattern, and adding a tiny surprise in it.

Waiting Series

Creating imaginary spaces with watercolour blotches.

Random Drawings with No Specific Themes

From Top Left: Shark Boy, On the Loop, Summer Sobert, Hide Or Seek, Organic Sound & Swim On…

Mechanical Lives Series

Moods Series

Inspired by Little Shops & Buildings

From Top Left: Ramen craving, Cycladic Love, Little Brickhouse, Stew Chilling, Little Village Dineout & Little Bagel Cafe

Abstract: Playing with shapes and colors

From Top Left: Home Sail, Tennis Thyme, Snail Mail & Rainy Sunny Side-Up

Inktober Series

A month full of drawings, inspired by my favorite songs, using part of the lyrics as the title of each artwork. Here are some of my favourites.

I probably enjoyed this phase the most in the entire project. And I think maybe this has something to do with our vision for See You See Me, which wasn’t to create illustrations in the first place. Our dream is to create our own music, and someday we still hope to do so, and then we can pair our music with my illustrations. This is still a dream project for us and hopefully we can bring it to pass in the near future.

Back to my illustration journey. I’m not sure if you can tell, but the more I drew, and as the year progressed, so did I. My style of drawing back when I was starting was so different, compared to now. And to be very frank, I often cringe now when I look back at all my archives. I’m so glad that my illustration style has evolved (and hopefully will continue to evolve and improve), and I can safely say that my work has definitely improved from where I first started. Anybody remember those doodles in my notebook?

I had a mentor who told me,
“You’re only as good as your last award or last work.”

Of course he didn’t mean to dismiss my achievements or who I was as a person. He meant it in way to encourage me to keep going and to grow. I’m sure he meant, to keep going, as a creative, we have to keep honing our craft and to never stop learning. I’ve held on to this piece of advice ever since. Every new piece of work for me is an invitation to do something greater and better the next time round.

The next tip I want to share, at least that’s what I learnt, is that there’s no fixed formula in my 365 Day project, the only secret ingredient, or formula, was consistency. The only rule I gave myself was to draw something, anything, every single day. You just need to keep it going. Or to find a way to do it every day, or as often as you can.

To help you get started, or if you need some inspiration, the themes I shared above are not a standard to follow, nor are they in chronological order, so you don’t have to follow or come up with such. You can pick what you like and create your own series and themes. I’d have loved to showcase all my ideas in this post but it’s impossible. If you’d like to see the full 365 Project in chronological order, you can scroll all the way back down on our Instagram page and view from there.

Side note: I also read one book during this project, and I highly recommend “Wreck This Journal” by Keri Smith. This book is fun and creative, and there are many exercises that make you think out of the box. There are a few cover editions, so you can buy one to wreck it up, I’m sure it’ll help you come up with fresh ideas.

Beyond the Finishing Line

As I came to the final few weeks and days of my 365 Day Project, little did I know, the routine and practice of drawing a picture a day had become a part of me. Besides picking up a new skill and craft that I could keep honing, through learning to find inspiration and new ideas from different sources, I also started to pay more attention to the works of different artists/illustrators and this led me to fall in love with picture books and wanting to work on one. I find that picture books are so deceptively simple but yet, they require so much thinking, and skill and craft from both the author and illustrator, to make it a really great picture book. Had I not started my 365 Day Project, would I have wanted to read and explore picture books? Probably not.

And the more you do it, the more you realize, there’s so much more to do. Inspired by all the great artists/illustrators that I had been reading and admiring, my desire to improve my illustration skills continue to grow. I started to explore beyond digital drawings and painting on the iPad Pro. As I researched and looked for other materials and methods, I realized there was so much more for me to learn and to try out — again. First, I discovered water-soluble color pencils and pastels. These new tools opened another brand new world for me. And that led to another new style of illustrations and many, many new approaches to my drawings and paintings again. So if you keep at it, this process will literally sustain itself!

Materials Used: Caran D’Ache Neocolor II & Supracolor Soft

In closing, to be able to draw every day, like what I’ve been able to do, is a true blessing. Again, it’s something that I never would have imagined could happen when I first started.

As I was concluding the project, and the more I posted then, our audience began to grow and grow. It may not be 100% similar now, but being able to gain an audience on social media has opened up many, many doors and opportunities for me. It was through See You See Me that we’ve met and are able to work with so many amazing people around the world, from like-minded artists, authors, small business owners, and not forgetting our followers (it’s because of you now, that we continue to do what we do).

What has happened to me since is something that brings me immense joy. Something that all my years of working as a graphic designer could not bring. In fact, it was this daily affair with a 365 Day Project that brought forth a new career path for me.

I’ve had the opportunity to work on three children’s books (and counting). The first two were introduced on our blog archives, dated Sept 02 & Nov 11, 2021. The third one that I’ve just completed is with a Danish author, Mia My. The book is called “A Tale of Life. If you’re a subscriber to our Little Musings newsletter, you would have seen the cover reveal of the book. I’ll keep you all posted when the book is going to be officially released.

Not only that, I’ve been blessed to be able to start my own online shop and very own small business. Working with small business owners, and seeing my prints going round the globe, going to more places than we can ever imagine is, till this day, something that I can hardly believe. I’m ever so thankful for all of you who’ve supported me. And by the way, I cannot talk about having my own small business, without again introducing my stockists, whom I’m very pleased to be working with. Here are some of our stockists who carry our products. Drop by for a visit if you’re nearby.

We’re also currently working on some new stuff for our shop and new projects. To learn more about these, and to be the first-to-know, subscribe to our Little Musings newsletter!

Lastly, I hope this share about my 365 Day Project can spark off something for you to pursue this year. Whether you’d like to commit to a 365 Day Project or a smaller, more manageable, project, I hope I was able to inspire you to start somewhere, or to stay the course, and to see where it leads you. The situation, exact circumstances, and outcomes for you may not be like-for-like with mine. But there’s one thing I know for sure, and that is, you’ll definitely learn something valuable about yourself — or your illustrations, or this journey you’re about to embark on — along the way. I hope you’ll find the journey to be as rewarding as I’ve found mine to be. May you set sail and discover a whole entire brave new world for yourself!

p/s: If you have comments, I’d love to hear them. Free to drop me any questions on illustration and the creative process as well. I’ll try my best to answer them as much as I can.

A Daily Affair

365 DAY PROJECT ON INSTAGRAM —A Drawing A Day

“I dream of painting and then I paint my dream.”– Van Gogh