Gettin' Rusty

Do you guys get rusty from not sketching for a while?
How much warming up do you have to do in order to break through the rust?
Any tips to keep from getting sloppy (sketch-every-single-day-of-your-life? :open_mouth: )
Seems like even after a few days of not sketching I have to warm up quite a bit more to get back into the groove.

Yes I get rusty. If it gets past a few weeks between sketching intensive work, I start to require a warmup. If I spend a couple months doing non-sketching work, it can take a couple weeks or more to get my brain and hands synched. I’d sketch outside of work but I don’t get paid to do that and I have non-work things going on when I’m not working.

It’s not so much rusty as sloppy. I tend to migrate toward wrist drawing (as opposed to shoulder/elbow), as well as drawing without motioning thinking about what I’m going to draw. It’s a bad habit to kick.

For sure, it’s something you need to do everyday to keep on point.
Even doing straight line and ellipse exercises once a day really helps.

  • I find that the longer I have been doing this, the less time it takes to resharpen
    my skills when they do start to fade.

This is common and gets worse as you move up in you career moving from designer to manager. I try to sit down and do some rough sketching or sketching exercises each day. Unfortunately other business task get in the way. My advice is to put time aside and make your do it at least an hour a day whether it be at home or at work.

If I’ve been working on other projects, even just for a few days, when I get back to sketching I find it hard to sketch as well from the shoulder and It’s hard to over stroke the same straight line. I found that if I don’t have time to do a full on sketch, just doing a page or two of warm-ups a day will keep me from getting sloppy. Hopefully If I get into design management one day I’ll be able to find the time to at least doodle everyday.

Glad to heard It eventually takes less time to ‘sharpen up’

It is like riding a bike, it takes a little time to smooth it back out, but it is not like learning all over. The key is to invest enough time into it early in your career that it never becomes an issue later. I sketch less now, bit still every week. And I try to do 2-3 sketches per week that are not project related, just for fun.