Happy 2025! I hope things are going okay for you.
Quite late in life I discovered something that's turned out to be really important for unlocking the moderate (in my eyes!) levels success I've seen - and that's sometimes making the hard decision to focus on one or two things, even if there are a wealth of opportunities begging to be explored.
I'm naturally very unfocused in my strategic approach to creative work - Sometimes I really have to push myself to carry tasks through to completion when the exciting early development stages are done.
Two years ago I made a decision to focus on one avenue in particular - I really wanted to push myself and see how much I could develop my skills as a musician, and to express that using Youtube as a platform. I enjoy making things using a huge variety of tools and media. In my time I've dabbled in Photography, Painting and Drawing, Music, Video Production and Creative Writing. However, I wasn't getting anywhere really satisfying exploring any of those pursuits, so it seemed right to put them aside, and just focus on something more specific.
I could see that Youtube was rapidly exploding with talent and opportunities to connect with people. Along the way I've made a few tutorials showing how I've done certain things, or explaining bits of information that I thought were helpful when I discovered them. Those instructional videos seem to have been the biggest drawn for many of you, so I'm glad I made them.
Two years on I'm still really enjoying performing and livestreaming.
Something else has come up though, and I'm doing my best to find a balance. On the one hand I'm screaming inside about how exciting it is before it even gets going, and on the other hand I think sharing a bit of the process could be entertaining and educational for you.
Here's what I CAN share without blowing the lid off it all too much.
Ehcmier and I are making something cool, and in order to deliver my parts of it I'm going to be doing a lot of drawing.
To get back into practice, and to really up my game, I'm studying some classic figure drawing and art books. The main one I'm digging into now is by George Bridgman. Here are a few pages from my sketchbook as I work through the exercises and copy the examples.
I would be keen to live-stream some sketching sessions or talk through the work in a video if you're interested, but I'm not sure if that's too far off base from my usual music content, so we'll have to see how it goes.
In the mean time, I'm still jamming on Youtube, and there's a selection of Bandcamp work up online too.
Speak to you soon!
Mike