The last several posts are the result of a new system of warm-up exercises, which I shamefully stole from my fellow artist Geoffrey Stone. It’s very simple. First you start with a list. Fill it with all manner of drawing exercises. Assign each one a number, one through however many you have. Then, when it’s time for your warm-up exercise, take your list, look over it very carefully, and roll the dice.

Whatever the dice say, that’s your exercise. Now go do it.

I love this system. For me, the worst part of having lists like these is actually picking one. Making a decision always feels like such an investment, like there are so many choices, I’d better have a good reason for picking this one over the others. Most of the time I end up not doing any of them. But now that’s not a problem. The dice make my decision for me.

My list is below, for anyone who’s curious. (Extra nerdy detail: some of these also have secondary rolls from other lists, and one of them even requires me to roll again from the same list. Yes I do enjoy this a little too much.)

1 – SKETCH OUTDOORS FROM LIFE
2 – NOIR SKETCHES
3 – COSTUME REFERENCE
4 – FIGURE SKETCHES FROM REFERENCE
5 – FIGURE SKETCHES FROM MY HEAD
6 – SELF-PORTRAIT
7 – COLOR SCHEMES
8 – SONG SKETCHES
9 – FAN ART
10 – ARTIST STUDIES
11 – AMBER’S CHOICE
12 – PIXEL ART FREE SKETCH

Drawn first in ink with a brush pen, then scanned into Photoshop where I added several variations of color.