After 10 years of producing a sketch a day, a pastime has become a way of life.

The sketching started as a way of increasing my creative output and a means to build confidence in readiness for becoming a full-time artist. Ten years has flashed by and it’s hard to believe I now have over three and a half thousands sketches stored away and a new life doing what I enjoy.

At the start, I thought I’d try to do a sketch each day, at least to the end of the week. The week became a month, and the month became a year, and now the years have become a decade. That simple process of putting pencil to paper and drawing what was in front of me has now become my primary income and my most enjoyed activity.
It is said it takes around 60 days of repeatedly doing something in order to form a habit. (Some say 30 days). With me, it was after a couple of weeks. A quick doodle in a sketchbook, a drawing on copier paper, a digital sketch on the iPad. I’m not a traditionalist snob. A sketch is a sketch whatever the media. I was hooked.

At some point, I plucked up enough courage to post on-line. Probably to the younger generations, the reticent I felt then is hard to contemplate, where everything is shared on social. For me, it felt like public exposure and I was unsure I was ready. I needn’t have worried. The world was kind to me. Starting out on Twitter, I slowly spread to other platforms and gained followers as I went. Not big numbers, but enough to encourage me to keep going. Then a request to buy a print came through, followed by another and another.

I never intended this simple activity to become my life, but I am pleased to say it has..

At first I sent my work off to a print house to fulfil the artwork and then shipped it off to the clients. This was expensive, time consuming and lacked the personal touch. I decided to invest in my work. After exhaustive research, I found the right printer and matched the best quality paper and inks to it. This allowed me to sell prints of my work directly and have full control over quality and schedules.

The next step was on-line stores. I tried many but settled on Etsy. Their popularity waxes and wanes, so at some point I also opened a shop on my website. This has proven to be a shrewd decision. The effort of learning the how’s and wherefores was definitely worth it. Besides that, galleries contacted me to feature and sell my work, both on-line and physical. People started finding me. Commissions appeared, a pet portrait agency contacted me and I thought, why not?

The drip drip growth built my confidence and with each step I ploughed more effort into being an artist. The sketch a day moved from a few hours each week to a whole day’s worth, then to two and now, well, full time.

The trigger moment is still unfathomable to me. I was about five years in and sketching anything that interested me, mostly British wildlife and countryside, but I happened to draw a raccoon. I posted it as usual and it got the normal number of likes and comments, then about two weeks later, the sketch went viral. (If that is the term). My sketch had a 1000 views, then 10,000, a 100,000 and on and on. Within a month, it had over 750,000 views. Unfortunately, these did not translate into sales, but they resulted in a massive boost to followers and, probably more importantly, I could now be found through search engines and social. You might think well that’s it racoons are the way forward, but bizarrely, the second time this happened, the subject was a large Victorian lamp. I sketched it outside Howarth train station. The same thing happened normal response, then a few weeks later boom, 1000s of views. To date, the lamp is my most viewed sketch on-line with millions of views clocked and no sign of diminishing numbers per month. The lesson here? Be ready for that unexpected moment. Have your sites ready, have your shops in place and your social setup. You never know what might bring you an audience.

My advice, if I were to give any, is to find time to feed that dream. Do it now. You never know where it might take you.

Sean Briggs has spent 30+ years working in the publishing world. He now makes a living as a traditional and digital artist.