Drawing 100 illustrations!
Hello, cozy artists!
In this blog - as you can tell by the title - I will be discussing my experience with this very daunting, yet exciting art challenge. Now, I certainly didn’t come up with this idea on my own. I was mainly following this challenge set out by Kesh (@kshart on Youtube). I have never done 100 illustrations in my life and even though it was intimidating to just think of completing 100, I still wanted to challenge myself to see if I could do it. For my method, I chose to do digital illustrations so that it would be easier and cut my time since I didn’t have a lot of it.
Another thing I chose to do, was to draw Animal Crossing characters. Like many people, my husband and I got into playing ACNH ( Animal Crossing New Horizons) during the pandemic and have really enjoyed it. I chose these characters because there were so many, therefore I could easily pick 100. Also, I wanted to draw some relatively easy designs. If I was going to have to do 100 illustrations, I didn't want to draw overly complicated things. Part of the stipulations of the challenge were to create for 100 days and to post on Instagram. (This part may have been my downfall, but then again I probably would have burned out either way.)
Things I learned while doing this challenge:
Lesson 1:
If you do something long enough, it becomes a habit. I knew this for other things but I never treated art like that. Art was just a hobby, something to do in my spare time. But as I got older, having ‘spare’ time got more and more rare. So, scheduling in a little bit of each day or most days of the week to practice was not only doable but fun. I got to prove to myself that I can consistently make art.
Lesson 2:
On days when I was stressed out from other things I actually looked forward to doing art. It was like a little treat such as when I redo my nails or give myself a facial. It felt like I was pampering my creative self. So, that was a nice added benefit.
Lesson 3:
I also learned not to rely on likes from social media. This is another thing I had already known before, but it was further impressed upon me. I was making art continually, posting constantly and improving my skills little by little. However, my likes and followers were actually dwindling. It felt like the opposite of my expectations were happening and that was very discouraging. I kept thinking that if I post more I’ll hopefully be able to get more followers and subscribers on my accounts. But it didn’t happen that way. I got a few more interactions at times, but many days the numbers kept dwindling.
So, I had to remind myself, to make the art for myself (which was my original goal), and not for anybody else. I had to refocus on my goal to complete the challenge for me. This was to improve my skills as an artist and to help me - not to gain popularity. And that is what my whole goal is. To get back into art, to make mistakes and learn from them. Yes, I want to build a cozy art community on the way, but at the end of the day, I’m the one that needs to learn and grow. I’d like to inspire others to get back into art again as well but at the heart of it, I am doing this art journey for myself.
Lesson 4:
Another thing I had noticed was that the more practice I did, I became faster with my techniques. I also found that I liked certain brushes on procreate. It was easier to learn shading and create shapes that I wanted (granted I did take advantage of the app’s ability to edit my shapes as well). This surprised me because I’m very new to digital art. And before I found it really difficult to illustrate anything digitally. Now I am getting better; still struggling but I did notice my improvement.
Lesson 5:
Another lesson was one that I learned from another youtuber Kirsty Partridge Art. (Her video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VGpWagiF_34&t=0s)
She mentioned that not every illustration you do will be perfect. Even with practice. Progress isn’t linear, there are days when it’ll come out looking better and other days not so great. But you need to keep practicing to keep making progress. I definitely noticed that. But keeping her words in mind helped me to not focus on my results so much and instead refocus on practicing and sharpening my skills with time.
Some days I was motivated to draw more, other days I had less time and energy so I tried to draw as much so I could. I didn’t want to kill my creativity by pushing myself. This was a big challenge that I was taking on for the first time but eventually, I did burn out - as I alluded to in the beginning of this blog. And so, instead of having completed 100 illustrations, I was left with 58. Which is still an impressive feat, at least for me.
Though I may have failed at completing 100 illustrations for the first time, I did succeed in completing 58 illustrations in succession for the first time. And for someone who has never done this challenge before I think that was a pretty good win at first. Don’t worry I did eventually complete all 100, but I had to take a long break before completing this challenge. I will link both of my videos discussing what I went through doing this challenge and you can see all the illustrations I completed in them.
Lesson 6:
Look for the small wins and not at all the failed attempts. I'm still grateful for the opportunity that this challenge gave me. I did improve my digital art skills and I plan to improve more and more as time goes by. For now, I want to thank you for taking the time to read this and hopefully it will encourage someone to continue trying to pursue art and improve their skills little by little. Take care, cozy artists and keep creating.
Part 1:
What I learned from failing this challenge | Speed Paint
https://youtu.be/kqwvViD8zWc?si=PTaAru-KIWi5313c
Part 2:
Why I Don’t Draw Everyday | Part 2 Of Drawing 100 Illustrations Art Challenge
