Incremental Illustration
I gave it a fancy name for you all, but also I'm calling it the Egg Timer Project. Let me tell you more...
This year has not been my most coherent. I think I have good excuses, but I’m still not happy about it. My focus has been all over the place and I have not prioritised illustration where I think I could have.
I have been thinking about how best to fix this. Get back in a habit. It’s a tricky time to do that, as I am writing this at 8 months pregnant and the first Lab Assistant has only just started nursery… even then it’s just one day a week. The Lab Tech (AKA my husband) works full time, compressed hours (as a Lab Tech, it’s the joke that keeps on giving) and two of the days he’s not working I am out managing Harbour Lane Studio. We get one day a week all together, where we try to do something as a family. Plus, I am not the best at juggling four days a week full-on toddler and working - I get a lot of Mum Guilt and like to take him places and give him my full attention. And, if he’s anywhere near a computer he assumes he can watch Thunderbirds on it, so that’s not helpful either. Throw in heavy pregnancy and soon a newborn (albeit ditching the pregnancy part at that point I suppose) and it’s not exactly work soup.
All that being said, I am surrounded by very impressive women who seem to manage just fine. Owner of said Harbour Lane Studio juggles running her two shops, two kids, and manages to illustrate and launch products right, left and centre. She doesn’t pretend it’s easy, but she still gets on with it. And I am obsessively keeping up with another illustrator pal who has a not-quite-3-month old and is already back to taking on editorial work. I can make this happen, I just have to make it happen. I might just have to give something else up. Hours of Netflix come to mind. Getting stuck, pregnantly, on the floor and choosing to just sit there could be ditched. Pointless Instagram scrolling (when I should be telling you all that I still draw things and you can still buy them) is another heavy contender.
So I thought to the times when I was personally most productive. Obviously, when I have a client, it’s a game changer for productivity, but I’m easing back on client work for the time being because I cannot imagine what having two kids is going to be like. Until I know how well I can fit work around them, it feels safest to commit to my maternity leave and not run the risk of letting anyone down or potentially missing deadlines due to someone throwing up on my iPad, or whatever.
Enter the 100 Day Project. Followers may remember this is something I tend to (at least attempt) do every year, it starts in June and runs for (funnily enough) 100 days. You show up the same way every day, and do something creative. Last year, I made stamps. In 2023 it was abandoned but I managed a few drawings I was proud of, each taking no longer than 20 minutes. In 2020, it was anatomy posters. They were some of my favourites, and I enjoyed having a focus to my personal creativity, something to bring me back and make me show up regularly.
I started and faltered with my hundred day project this year, and now the official project has finished. So I’m going to make my own. 365 days though*. By the time I’m finished I should have a 10 month old, a nearly-four year old, a purpose-built studio that is currently my garage and hopefully, a more consistent personal practice. Here’s the rules:
I will make (at least) 30 minutes in every day* to draw. And no, I am not committing to a fully-fledged, polished illustration every time: it might be a sketch, it might be colouring something I drew a previous day. But it will be a visually obvious bit of illustration. I'm rustling up a template in brand-new-Affinity so it’s nice and clear what I’ve done. If I have more than 30 minutes, I will draw something longer, but only in 30-minute increments. Hence, incremental illustration.
I will share my 30-minute-feat on Instagram, daily. Because I can’t think of anywhere better at present. I guess I can use the Substack Notes too, so watch out for them there!
I will share a weekly round-up in Substack. At least one of the illustrations will make up that week’s weekly fact. I guess I hope there will be a series for the week that’s all cohesive, but that’s not always going to happen. Anyway, it will get us back into routine on here too.
Each piece will be either anatomical, naturally historical, or part of an A-Z of sciencey things. I’ll explain more about that last one as it evolves, but basically I need art for the kids rooms so I’m adding an A-Z poster project into the challenge.
I am going to use the project to explore new techniques and processes which I hope will keep things fresh, but allow me to continue cementing my illustrative style which I feel a bit out of sync with, I blame pregnancy twice.
I’m going to limit each piece to a maximum of three colours. Because the tighter the brief, the easier to not make excuses. And if I’m trying new techniques I need to be limited somewhere else.
OK, that’s the rules, and the project.
I know I start a lot of projects with a big announcement like this and then fail to see it through, but I really have thought about this one, and I’m fully committing. I have an accountability buddy (one might say, the BEST accountability buddy) who’s going to poke me with a very long stick (she doesn’t live near me, unfortunately, so it’s VERY long) if she doesn’t see my posts on the regular. And I committed myself to the very impressive Isla who runs the 100 Day Project Scotland too. She is expecting me to join this project in with 100 Days 2026 when the time comes around, so I’ll need to be practiced, prepared, and have a wee chunk of a hundred somethings to run through in June next year.
I’m going to start with a series on Organs Involved in Pregnancy and Labour because that’s where my head is just now and I feel like there’s a lot that goes unsaid about what’s involved there. Like, it took me an upsettingly long amount of time to find out the specifics of what actually happens during contractions, and we don’t really talk about the physical changes in your brain (oh, baby brain is not just made up, but it’s also a lot more complicated and person specific) and I feel like I might have to do something on the sciatic nerve because this new kid is sitting on mine and my arse is KILLING me.
So, follow along here, weekly (or if I remember to use Notes) or over on Instagram, keep me showing up if you would be so good. I’m off to rustle up today’s, so if you are reading this on or after the 7th November 2025, you can go try and find it!
One final point: whilst I might not use it every time due to fear of waking one of the far-too-many children, I do have an actual egg timer prepared for this.
*I reserve to take a few days off surrounding my actual labour, but I am going to try and prepare for that by having something in the bank.