I've recently decided to start trying to do a 'sketch-a-day' to keep my facebook flowing with pretty pictures, but very quickly I realised that the kind of 'sketches' I was doing were actually doing nothing for me in terms of my progression and skill.

I copied them straight from photos, with little thought to colour, values, technique, detail... anything really.. I was just mindlessly copying. 

This is when I realised that copying pictures was getting far too easy for me and it was getting to the point where my copying skills are far outweighing my concepting and designing skills. Although I use reference when I paint creatively, obviously, I still need to fill in the gaps from time to time and I haven't spent enough time learning/practicing doing that. 

While I accept that environments aren't my strongest point, I know that I can do people and animals pretty well, so I've decided to change the game for myself and finally challenge myself again and expect to produce some shoddy work again before I can get better.

 This is my first example of how badly I can work when I'm lazy and try to stick photos together! Although I hate this and actually took it down from facebook for sheer embarrassment... its a start! By doing things like this I'm giving myself room to improve again, which is what I really need to do. 

I'm going to continue doing various studies and improving my figure painting skills etc etc but I am going to make more time to do bad work, and more of it, since that is the only way I'm ever going to get better. 

Its gonna be hard for me to not produce the standard of work I can produce when I copy things but I can always hide them away if need be and the results will be worth it.  I'll update my blog with my progress :)