committing time & going digital

In January, I made a resolution to commit 15 hours a week to creative work for all of 2024. For the first three months, I managed 8-10 hours a week, but never 15. Plus, it took nearly an hour looking at the calendar to schedule.

I convinced myself I had a strict boss and that I was paid by the hour. Otherwise, I did not take my goal seriously. There is always more practical work to be done than art, at least my mind tells me this.

It helped that my family took my goal seriously. Noticing my hours on our shared calendar, they’d remind me, “You better get to work, it says 7-9pm on the calendar, and it’s 6:57pm!”

As April started to come into view, I thought: You have to do this, just make it happen every week for this one month, and if it works, do it again in May.

And, it worked! I completed 15 hours a week for the entire month!

I scheduled brief, daily morning hours; one evening a week; and the rest scattered throughout each day. Sometimes I had a nice stretch of three hours straight, but often an hour here, an hour there. One hour is completed in the car because there’s a gap in time and rather than drive back home, I just bring my work.

And you know what? It’s been even better than I’d imagined. Here are just a few things this commitment of creative time has generated already:

I stayed with a design idea that wouldn’t leave me. I sketched, I wrote about it, and even when I felt stuck, I kept sketching because I had time on the clock. Then one day, that idea unfurled into three themes, each with multiple designs that I envision as a Carrot Condo “line” I hope to unveil for you this fall.

That wouldn’t have happened in the past. A line would have seemed too big, and without committed hours, I wouldn’t have seen how I could get it done. Planning on 15 hours a week for the entire year allowed my effort to start catching up with my imagination.

However, diving into creating this line revealed to me how much I do not know. Until now, I’ve resisted admitting this to myself. Even though problem solving and teaching yourself new skills are at the heart of being a creative person, both of those things intimidate me.

This time, however, I’d look up at my sketches of the three themes, and I did not want to simplify them. So, I took a giant step. After thinking about it, researching it, working with two different friends to try it out–I bought an iPad and a drawing program.

So now, I am teaching myself how to draw digitally. I cannot overstate how HUGE this feels.

I’ve resisted digital art for the entire decade Carrot Condo has existed. For good reasons, but also sometimes out of fear. And what I suspected is true–when adding color to an image, it’s just not as satisfying as using my pens. However, everything else about it has been exactly what I’d hoped and more.

Best example so far: I can create an illustration in layers. So, say one line wobbles a bit. On paper with pen, I’d have to start the entire creation over from scratch. Now, however, I re-draw just that one layer.

I’m nowhere near what I aspire to, but I am so much further along than I’d even dreamed. I spend part of my 15 hours watching how-to videos and walking myself through tutorials.

Many talented artists have taken the time to create thoughtful, clear tutorials, and make them available online for free. For some, I watch an ad before the video. For others, it’s simply the person’s website and an ad-free page describing what they’ve learned so others can benefit from their self-teaching.

That expertise and generosity has inspired me and given me a boost of energy and optimism. That’s something I did not expect.

I’m posting brief updates on my progress once a week on Instagram (@carrot.condo) if you’d like to follow along. My newsletter tells the fuller story, as those of you who subscribe already know. I plan on updating monthly, so if you’re not already subscribed, you can follow along here:

And sometime in the fall, I plan to unveil all my new creations. It might end up smaller than what I have sketched out and hold in my imagination, but the good feeling I get with these 15 hours has me hoping that it will be big and colorful and fresh and new but still very “Carrot Condo-y” and even if it’s not, I look forward to sharing the results with all of you.

I deeply appreciate your interest, and thank you for following along! See you next month!

–TRISTA