100 Day art boot camp
Everything takes practice, anything you want to be good at. If you want to be happy with your work you have to practice it. I fell out of that practice with art, and I found myself hesitant to start any illustration project for fear that it just wouldn't come out how I imagined. So I need to get back to practicing.
Just a little bit everyday helps so much, brings back the muscle memory of it all, but consistency is key. I Knew that i wanted to do a 100 Days of art challenge but I wanted more structure than the last time I tried it. My last attempt’s only parameters were the size of the paper, I cut 100 8 by 6 sheets of paper and that was it. With no guard rails or plan more than a third of the pieces were just splashes or smears of paint, or sharpie patterns. And that was some kind of helpful at the time, I only wanted to be making things, anything, more often. It also took well over 100 days, it was 6 whole months after I started when I made the final piece, and I was maybe proud of half of them.
There are so many ways to do the 100 days of art challenge. I’ve seen some divide one canvas into 100 sections, or crochet one granny square a day to end up with a blanket. I wanted cold hard skills practice, so I wrote out a plan.
My 100 days will be divided into sets of 10, each with a different subject and a warm up to match.
Day 1-10= portraits
10 minute warm up: self portrait
Day 11-20= figure drawing & fashion illustration
10 minute warm up: page of loose figure drawings
Day 21-30= Observational still lives
10 minute warm up: draw the same object from a different angle every day
Day 31-40= Character Creation
10 minute warm up: quick storyboard for previous character
Day 41-50= Creatures, Animals and Insects
10 minute warm up: 1 inch bug sketch
Day 51-60= backgrounds and landscapes
10 minute warm up: a flower or tree
Day 61-70= Anatomy, and bones
10 minute warm up: a hand or skull
Day 71-80= Bodies in motion
10 minute warm up: a page of loose figure drawings
Day 81-90= lighting and transparency
10 minute warm up: orb shading exercise, different angle every day
Day 91-100= One more piece from each category + a self portrait
10 minute warm up: matching the category of the day
I am well aware that sometimes a strict plan can be annoying, or frustrating. If you choose to follow along or go through this practice challenge in the future please feel free to change the categories to fit your needs, replace them with skills for specific mediums or do 10 days for each part of the body. The reason I'm excited about this is because they are all things I want to practice, you should practice what excites you!
I am currently on day 5, half way through the portraits, and it's going well! I am proud of what I’m making and feeling better about my abilities. Nice to see I didn't lose the skills I worked so hard for. I already want to make more, that hesitation to start is fading away.
Even with a plan that I am so excited to follow, there is still the issue of consistency. So in an attempt to make sure I finish in time, I am posting my practice on socials daily. This kind of pressure to continue a series I promised hasn't always worked to keep me on time, but I’m hoping that this time it will be the push I need to get it done. Go follow me on Instagram, YouTube or Tiktok to see the whole journey, and bother me if I’m falling behind.
