What is Analog Day?

Ready to make your sketchbook a playground?

Hello, my name is Mila! Artist in Progress is for self-taught illustrators who want to grow their skills, build or expand their portfolios, and develop a consistent creative practice. All without the pressure of hustle culture. I share reflections, moments of self-doubt, practical tips, and creative challenges to help you (and me) keep going, stay inspired, and grow at our own pace.

Imagine if your phone had opening hours. What if you could give yourself just one day (or even a morning or evening) each week to mute your notifications, trade some scroll time for sketchbook time, and let yourself play?

That’s the idea behind Analog Day.

Every month, I’ll send you a sketchbook prompt to explore during your own Analog Day. These prompts aren’t about drawing specific objects or following strict themes.

Instead, they’ll guide you into different creative modes. Playful ways of thinking and sketching that helps explore without pressure.

As I’ve spent more time in my own sketchbook, I’ve discovered certain “modes” (or we can call them “categories”) that I use when choosing what to draw. I’ve taken some time to organize them:

• Warm-ups: quick, no-pressure sketches to loosen up and get into the flow.

• Experiments: trying out new techniques, colors, or materials.

• Line: exploring line to define shapes and forms.

• Shape: focusing on form like circles, squares, and triangles.

• Structure: thinking about the underlying structure of the object

• Color: playing with color theory and experimenting with different color palettes.

• Composition: playing with the same object using different compositions

• Observation: drawing what I see

• Speed: quick, gestural sketches

I want to think of my sketchbook as a playground. As a space where I can pick up the creative building blocks I’ve gathered from studying art and see what I can build with them.

So… Come play with me!

If you’ve found value in what I share, becoming a paid subsciber is a way to help me keep going. Aaaand… you’ll get some extras too!

Here’s what you’ll get for $5/month or $50/year:

✦ Full access to the archive
✦ 10% off my Procreate brush set

✦ Once per week:

• A sketch prompt for your Analog Day

✦ Once per month:

• Cinematic Composition Challenge breakdown (where I analyze a movie scene and turn it into a picture book spread concept)

• A full walk-through of one of my sketchbook pages (based on that month’s sketch ideas, with notes on my process, tools, and lessons I learned)

• Live drawing sessions (I’d love to do them monthly, but travel sometimes gets in the way)

If it’s not the right time, no worries. Thank you for being a part of my creative journey.

Until next time,