What I've learnt from participating in #the100dayproject

I challenged myself to participate and complete #the100dayproject and I did it. Sure, there were moments of doubt and dread along the way but I pushed through and drew 100 eye sketches in 100 days. Okay, technically speaking, I did it in less than 100 days because I just wanted to get it out of the way but you know, give or take a few days. *winks*

Now lots of people have successfully completed #the100dayproject over the years but it's my first time so here's a summary of what I've learnt from participating in #the100dayproject in 2019.

Eye sketch 100/100

1. Being specific in your creative project will help you to keep on track.

Initially, I thought that I should just challenge myself to be creative for 100 days straight. Not be too hard on myself. Keep the stress levels down. You know, slacker mentality. *LOL*

I suppose that would work if you don't create that often but I was already challenging myself everyday to be creative in other aspects of my life so my goal needed to be really specific for me to achieve a breakthrough. Of some sort. So I went with something I loved doing, was already doing but amped it up to see if I could improve dramatically in 100 days.

Eye sketch 22/100

2. Your goal should be challenging but totally doable if you work at it.

I'm not one to shy away from hard work but I decided to work with small eye sketches so that the task at hand won't seem too daunting, I can really work on the details and can totally catch up if I missed any days. This format also made it portable for me to work on it on-the-go especially when I was travelling.

Sketch 6/100

3. Be kind to yourself.

Not every piece needs to be a masterpiece.

There were days I was just too tired at the end of the day to work on something challenging so I "cheated" and did a quick sketch just to keep up with the scheduled days. Not my finest work for sure.

As time progressed, I realized that I shouldn't be so hard on myself on a daily basis. I decided that I didn't want to do lacklustre sketches that do nothing to improve my drawings so I gave myself permission to "skip" days and catch up later with somewhat decent pieces at the very least. And that worked out much better. I planned ahead and got a headstart on sketches when I had free time. It's amazing how not starting with a blank piece of paper can just push you forward.

Sketch 54/100

4. Keep it fun and interesting for you.

Let's keep it real. Drawing the same subject matter repeatedly gets stale fast. And you do not want muscle memory to set in and for every piece to end up looking suspiciously like the last one.

For me, I went in with different art supplies, tried out different eye angles, worked with different paper substrates and experimented with various colour combos to "force" myself to learn with every sketch. I'm proud to say that I did not waste a single sheet of paper throughout the whole process. Even when things went awry, I did my best to "salvage" the drawing and make it look somewhat decent. *Gives self pat on the back...Mother Earth smiles in approval...triumphant music plays in the background*

Sketch 25/100

Sketch 41/100

Sketch 87/100

5. Learn from your "mistakes" and try again.

There were some eye angles that I struggled with but I tried to improve on them by working on the same reference photos but tweaking the colours and varying the angles slightly. Working on different substrates also yielded different results.

Sketch 71/100

6. I didn't expect to fall back in love with old art supplies.

I didn't buy any new art supplies for this endeavour but chose to revisit supplies I already own, challenging myself to use them in new ways. In the process, I learnt to love them again. Like Copic Markers. And now I can say that I've used every single Prismacolor Premier Colored Pencils I own at least ONCE. Yes, 150 of them.

In summation, I think that #the100dayproject is a great creative challenge to try. Sure, you can do it at anytime but knowing that thousands of creatives are doing it at the same time is like having a personal cheering team behind you. I think I might just do it again in 2020. Probably not eye sketches though. Maybe dessert drawings...I have so many references on my phone. *hehehe*

Will you join me in #the100dayproject in 2020? 

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