I’ve been trying to decide what being a better documentarian of myself that is also sustainable would look like for me as a fine artist and illustrator. I came up with three criteria it would have to meet:
It has to be fun. There will be times it feels like a chore, for sure but it overall needs to be a medium and process that I find fun and interesting to do.
It has to be at my pace. I am being a self documentarian, not a self journalist. It’s ok to record my time in the studio throughout the week and post a video later. None of it has to be same day so I am allowed to be more methodical about the videos I produce.
It has to be integrated with my creative process nearly seamlessly. Needless to say, the process of capturing myself working and my process needs to be something that doesn’t interrupt said process. At the very least, it shouldn’t be something that takes a significant amount of time and energy away from what I am working on.
As a team of one with a strong videography/cinematography background, the best way to meet all three of these criteria is to do studio vlogging and produce a video roughly once a week. That said, as I mentioned earlier, it’ll have to be at my own pace.
My current plan to make this work for me is to film throughout the week or so and create a cohesive video covering the artwork I am producing, tying into my other 2025 goal: A sketch a day, a finished piece a week. I’ll give early access to the video for those able and generous enough to contribute to my Ko-Fi page before releasing it publicly on YouTube.
This does mean that my finished artwork will likely be available to see before the vlog episodes come out and that’s ok. The point of the vlog is to give additional context and behind the scenes look at what I am doing, not to be the “movie trailer” marketing work I have yet to complete or make live.
All that said, I’ll still release updates, upcoming events, and shows in a timely manner through socials, blog, and my newsletter. It’s just the vlogging content is more laidback and paced out to help prevent burnout.
I’m excited for this new endeavor and hope you all will join me in it whether thats with early access on Ko-Fi or subscribing to my YouTube channel and watching my videos when they go live or both. As of writing this (03JAN2025), I am currently recording “week 0” and plan to have my first vlog episode out no earlier than a week or two from now. Vlogs coming soon!
Article also available on Substack
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