Reading Everywhere (and how your art changes through the process)

“Miss a meal if you have to, but don’t miss a book” said Jim Rohn. Although I don’t agree with him about missing meals (I have mentioned it before that I love eating), I think that there are plenty of things in my life I could quit (or would like to quit if possible), but the reading is not one of them.

I don’t read so much that I would like to. For this year’s Reading Challenge goal in Goodreads (God bless this site, it’s awesome!) I set only 36 books and have read 31 of them for now (five more!). One of my colleague set 120 and has surpassed it by already have read 126.

The main reason why I don’t read so much is that I don’t have regular reading habit. Sometimes I don’t read any book in two months and then there are times I swallow one book after another so quickly that I can’t enjoy them so much as I want.

The second reason is everlasting case – not enough time. Drawing is one thing that swallows my time, but this is the thing I love as much as reading. So I would never reduce the time I spent drawing. But there is one thing which could take less time and that is working. Even if I like my job, so long it isn’t reading or drawing (I sometimes read in my workplace though 😉 ) I will whine about how much it consumes my time.

But you can’t just quit your job and start reading instead (and in drawing I’m not in this level yet) and that’s why I decided to develop my reading habit. I did some thinking and little research in internet and decided to follow these steps:

1. Read every morning nearly 25 pages while drinking coffee.
2. Read every evening 25 pages before bedtime.
3. Find the “reading place” for yourself. It can be cozy armchair in your home, favourite cafe or even the tree like in the picture
4. Reduce using internet (especially Facebook)
5. Carry the book with you everywhere. You never know when there is a change to read it (for example if waiting for doctor or driving in bus, or maybe even in work). And it’s the best possible way to avoid boring situations.

What about you? Do you love reading? And do you think you need better reading habit or you already read so much you want?

But now little about my new picture. At first I wanted to make the picture where it’s raining and that’s the reason of umbrella.* Because how many of you use umbrella in winter? I already made the girl’s clothes which suits with rainy evening. She had yellow raincoat and rubber boots as you can see in this not-yet-ready picture below.

*The rainy picture would have matched better with our weather here in Estonia. Some of you maybe remember how I was whining last December about the missing snow. This year the situation is the same, but I have accepted it.

But you know. Sometimes you start one thing but something different grows out of it. And I think that the snowy picture turned out quite well. What do you think? Should I finish the rainy picture also or is the snowy one good enough?

Thank you for your attention and hope you have peaceful Advent time! 🙂