My two are:
Making sourdough. I personally always heard like this weird almost mysticism around making it. But I bought a $7 starter from a bakery store, and using just stuff in my kitchen and cheap bread flour I’ve been eating fresh sourdough every day and been super happy with it. Some loafs aren’t super consistent because I don’t have like temperature controlled box or anything. But they’ve all been tasty.
Drawing. I’m by no means an artist, but I always felt like people who were good at drawing were like on a different level. But I buckled down and every day for a month I tried drawing my favorite anime character following an online guide. So just 30 minutes every day. The first one was so bad I almost gave up, but I was in love with the last one and made me realize that like… yeah it really is just practice. Years and years of it to be good at drawing things consistently, quickly, and a variety of things. But I had fun and got something I enjoyed much faster than I expected. So if you want to learn to draw, I would recommend just trying to draw something you really like following a guide and just try it once a day until you are happy with the result.
I mean I’m not great in any way, but the way I did that I found very satisfying was find a tutorial where the end product is something you like and will take under an hour, or heck 10 minutes, idc.
Then follow it. The first time it’ll probably come out garbage. That’s okay! Think about which parts you did wrong.
Then the next day, follow the tutorial again. Then the next day, again. Each day try things differently to get closer to what the tutorial wants you to do.
After about a month I was super happy with what I drew and realized that if you just draw, you’ll get better.
This is great advice btw. I know amateurs and pros who swear by the “paint/draw one small piece every day” approach.
Oh happy to hear that it’s valid advice! I got it from a speaker at a video game making thing I went to years ago that stuck with me.
Talking about it I suddenly have the urge to do it again xD It was very satisfying to compare last weeks drawing to this weeks, and the first drawing in the book to the last one. I can only imagine how satisfying it would be if I stuck with it for a year XD
This is why I joined a track-a-week music challenge this year! I’ve been dabbling for 5 years and still have no idea what I’m doing musically (no theory or anything) but I figured cranking out a finished song every week throughout 2024 would force me to get better and it’s really working!
I mean, I’m still cranking out garbage, but now it’s higher quality garbage and I can make decisions faster, let go of ideas that aren’t working without a second thought, and learn from other people taking the challenge.
As far as art goes, I’ve been drawing live caricatures for 15 years and I’m WAY better than even a few years ago. Definitely stick with it. Be too stubborn to give up. Keep doing the thing. Skill will develop the more you persevere.
I love this advice. I found someone on YouTube and poorly copied them on a MTG card (just altering it). It was fantastic, and I really am looking forward to the next one already