I recently posted my 100th illustration on Instagram. 100 — a number I never thought would be possible. It took me two years to reach this milestone. Through this journey, my illustration skill improved quite a bit, and I created many pieces I liked, but more importantly, I learned to challenge my limiting beliefs, and practiced self-compassion.
How I Got Started
Sketching didn’t come naturally to me. I used to be pretty bad at it and rarely drew, but somehow I was drawn to illustrations by their quirky styles and use of colors as I saw more and more of them in apps and websites. As a designer, I’d always wanted to expand my skillset, so when I felt I’d learned enough about the typical subjects like typography, colors and layouts, naturally I turned to illustration as the next skill to acquire.
In 2016, I took a sketching course when doing my master’s degree. The assignments were pretty hard. I often felt embarrassed when the instructor asked us to open our sketch books and show our work to the whole class. There was a lot of disappointment when I compared my own sketches with the beautiful ones created by my peers, but without having too much of an expectation of my own skills, I managed to get through the course without beating myself up. After that, because I didn’t want to forget what I’d learned, I started drawing on my own when possible.
In 2018, I stumbled upon the book Drawing Cartoons by Colin Shelbourn in New Zealand. The book is really informative and features some useful techniques of drawing simplified, cartoonish figures. After reading the book, I shifted from pursuing realism to drawing stylized figures, and I started illustrating. At the beginning, probably due to luck, I was able to create a piece I really liked, but my skill wasn’t very stable. Pretty soon I seemed to lose my mojo and ended up with results I wasn’t happy about. I was disappointed.
Two Grounding Insights
The same time I was learning to draw cartoonish figures, I came across this inspiring article by Benjamin Hardy. I took away from it two powerful insights: 1. it’s better to be prolific than perfect; 2. it can take years for our work to measure up to our taste.
Keeping these two insights in mind is so grounding: my mental barriers seemed to be cleared and I seemed to loosen up. Growing up, I was a perfectionist. I wanted things to turn out exactly the way I wanted. The first insight has taught me not to get too hung up on the outcome of one particular illustration, because one good piece or one bad piece can’t truly represent my skills. I’ll be able to create good work, and better work, if I keep creating. It’s not the individual piece but the trajectory that matters.
I therefore came up with the plan to create one figure illustration per week and post it to my Instagram and Dribbble account. I felt that this was something achievable, and it wouldn’t be a short term thing. I believe this would help me create more work than just illustrating when I feel like it. Also, based on the second insight, to close the gap between my work and my taste, I knew that I needed to do this for years. I was mentally prepared, and kick-started the plan in June 2018.
Show Up and Push Through
Showing up to illustrate every week is a challenge. Over the next two years, there were so many times when finishing a piece just felt so difficult. For instance, I wasn’t in the mood of creating the piece below on the left because during that week, I was rejected by a company that I really wanted to work at. I was sad and emotionally exhausted, but I pushed through by telling myself that doing something is better than doing nothing. As you can see, the colors weren’t good. The execution was pretty bad. I didn’t like it, and the limiting belief of “I’m not a good illustrator” started to creep in. However, I kept the piece. As I looked at it, I told myself that if I could stare squarely at my inadequacy, then I would be able to accept my current skill level, and continue to improve based on that, and that’s all that matters. Once I realized this, I had the courage to bounce back and illustrate the next piece.
And indeed, when I didn’t dwell on my negative thoughts and kept creating, the next piece turned out to be quite good, and I wasn’t that afraid of experiencing low points in this journey anymore.
For an illustration to work, so many things, such as shapes, composition, line quality, colors and texture, need to come together. I found that I could quickly run out of energy if I tried out every possible combination of these things. Because of this, I’ve given myself a limited amount of time: I use two days in the weekend to finish one illustration. If I can’t get it done to my liking by the end of the two days, then I’ll need to let go and accept the outcome and post it anyways. This helps me beat perfectionism and move on.
The Joy of Illustrating
Even though there were so many challenges, the most satisfying part of illustrating was to see my own work come to life. Moreover, it was a fun team activity. After seeing my work, one of my coworkers started a sketching group. We challenged ourselves to create illustrations based on a list of prompts. It was an exercise where I really had to stretch myself to draw things I didn’t feel comfortable with drawing. However, as I finished the prompts one at a time, I felt that my illustration skill was gradually improving, which felt awesome.
Knowing how to illustrate definitely has helped me in unexpected situations. When I joined my current company, I created the following illustration series to introduce myself. It was my first time doing this, which was something I’d never thought would be possible for me to pull off.
After two years of practice, I’ve become more adept at illustration. However, there’s still a gap between my work and my taste. I still haven’t fully grasped the nuances between a good piece and a great one. I still need to improve in terms of composition, finding the right stories to tell, and the use of textures, brushes and colors.
Final Thoughts
In the book Atomic habits, the author James Clear says that small actions like habits cast a vote on our identities. Illustration is my passion. Being a good illustrator is my dream. Each week when I show up and illustrate, I’m reinforcing my identity as an illustrator. Whether my illustration turns out to be good or not is irrelevant. I’ll get better over time if I keep practicing, and I’ll be there through one small step at a time.
If you’re interested in seeing more of my work, feel free to visit my Instagram or Dribbble account. Most of my work is also free for download, visit free-illustration.com to learn more.
