Education Updates
My podcast journey continues this week. I finished the episode I linked last week and it was very good. Since then, I've listened to a handful of others. Today's recommendation is Code Switch, by NPR. I believe I've recommended this before but I'm recommending it again after listening to a few additional episodes. I'm also a big fan of the #supportblackartists tag on Instagram.
Productivity Updates
I'm in a holding pattern here. Week by week, I'm trying to get better at identifying priorities and sticking to those before getting distracted with a million other things. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. Overall, I'm still finishing projects so I'd call it a success, even if I drive myself a little crazy in the process.
The Story of June's Contest Piece
Speaking of which, last month's contest piece was perhaps the best example of calling something a priority and failing to treat it as such. It was difficult so I put it off, resulting in a race to the finish. But I did finish! And, most importantly, I finished by 9pm the day before the due date, so that's pretty good. Not ideal... but pretty good.
You can find a full breakdown of the concept process in my latest newsletter. The critique arena is on Thursday of this week so I should be able to update you on the results in next week's post.
In the meantime, I'm dipping into the Inktober weekly challenge and beginning to think about the prompt for July's contest (a book cover for The Wizard of Oz). Today, I posted a quick little eye sketch that I drew with my new copic markers last night. I tagged it with the Inktober 52 hashtags because it was inspired by that prompt and have gotten a surprising amount of likes on it from people that I don't know. This is interesting to me. Either:
- People really like this one
- This inktober hashtag is really active
- Some combo of the two
This could be another good way to grow my following. As of today, I have 192 followers on Instagram, up from 180-something at the end of June. That's the fastest growth I've seen in such an interval since I started this account last year. Seems like I'm starting to tap the right hashtags and/or I'm putting up better work. I'd like to explore this a little more in the next month or two. It would be great to grow my followers substantially by the end of the year. Stay tuned.
