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Setting the bar low

2024 brought the revival of Thing-a-day, where you're supposed to spend somewhere between 5-30 minutes every day of February doing something creative.

Which sounds easy but is very hard to accomplish. My 2011 attempts ended on day 18, in 2012 I even only made it to day 5. Both times I was clearly setting too ambitious goals. Having a super simple concept that you can replicate every day without the need to come up with a new idea, is definitely the best strategy.

So I dug out the amazing Neolucida I got on Kickstarter back in 2013 and set myself the goal to trace one of my houseplants a day. It ended up being a very peaceful and enjoyable activity. Naturally we should all spend more time drawing.

About the Neolucida

The Neolucida is the brainchild of Pablo Garcia & Golan Levin. It's a modern reinterpretation of the 19th century drawing aid, the camera lucida. A prism merges the scene in front of you with the paper below you. Allowing you to trace without lifting your gaze. Magic!

Image from the Neolucida website - How it works
The most complicated part of the exercise was staging the plants with a nice white background, to ease the drawing process.