Shake up your art habit

Preferably with your Type-A Artist friends

Kelcey Ervick

Jun 07, 2026

The next day:

Post Script

I’ve been writing this while still experiencing the trip, so I’m not sure that I even scratched the surface of why it felt so transformative. One thing that strikes me is that when the idea was floated on a zoom call a while a back—let’s all meet up in Maine together—we all just said YES. I kept thinking it would fall through, but it didn’t. And I’m so glad

The other thing—and this could/should/may eventually be its own post—is that we are all self-identified Type-A artists. So we all nerded out together, and K. Woodman-Maynard, Beth Spencer, and Nicole Kelner, and I fed off of each other really well.

Speaking of: check out Beth Spencer’s wonderful beetle swatch prompt that we all got to do here!

While we were having this amazing week, we got the news about the death of Marjane Satrapi, creator of the brilliant Persepolis, which was the first graphic memoir I taught, and which taught me so much. I was in awe of the book and of her, and I loved sharing video clips to my students of what a hilarious badass she was, always smoking and joking, even when she was serious. She changed so many lives with her work and showed so many storytellers what was possible.

The next zoom hangout for paid subscribers is next Saturday, June 13, 2026 at 11am ET. We are going to revisit the idea of Thinking Small for our Big Projects. I’ll also probably add some prompts inspired by this week. Click here to learn more and register.

Thanks for reading The Habit of Art by Kelcey Ervick, a Substack Featured Publication (twice!). I love writing and drawing these posts and am grateful to everyone who follows along. I’m the author of four award-winning books, including the graphic memoir The Keeper, which Alison Bechdel called “a triumph!” (her exclamation point). I’m a professor of creative writing in Indiana, and I live on the banks of the St. Joseph River.

-Kelcey