‚¨‚͂悤, it's >>179 again. I completed drawing 100/10000 today. That's an average of about 2.5 days per drawing since the last time I checked in, which is a 100% increase in frequency. Still not where I'd like to be, but it's progress.
I'm still primarily drawing gestures, and probably will continue doing so for a while. As my technique improves I'm getting a lot more comfortable with the basic proportions of the human figure. Previously I was just doing a simple skeleton, but I've added hands and shoes at low detail. It's amazing to me how expressive hands can be.
Currently I'm doing 3-5 gesture sketches at about 7-15 minutes each and calling that "a drawing" for my counting purposes, but I want to get where I can do maybe twice as many gestures at similar quality in the same amount of time. It still takes me quite a while to mentally process the pose and first bits of structure, so perhaps I should try some high-speed drills to make it a bit more reflexive. Also I'm starting to think maybe my skeleton model itself could use some improvement.
Off and on I've begun using r/SketchDaily's reference site, which is specifically designed for this kind of thing. The timer feature is nice, if a bit buggy. The image bank is about 20% useful to me by volume. Considering it's free, it's not a bad deal overall.
As for inorganic objects, I've been working on airplanes. The long lines and exact proportions are suitably unforgiving for working on pen and arm control in a way that rough humanoids aren't. I'm concentrating on military jets, for obvious reasons. Lots of neat prototypes out there that don't usually get a lot of screentime.
I've also experimented with a few techniques I haven't really touched before, including digital oil-style painting and meola-style splattering. As much as I want to think improving requires some sort of restrictive approach with specific incremental objectives, I'd also say a reasonable amount of fully unfettered play is equally important. Also, clouds are fun.
Inspirational artist shoutout: Salvador Dali. Ever whimsical and humorous, he had a very long and fruitful creative life. He's well known for a few particular pieces, but I'd recommend spending some time looking through the rest of his stuff too.