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The 100 Day Project
Do you like art challenges? I always thought I hated them but you know what, maybe that’s not true.
I’ve never really given art challenges a chance. Or more like I haven’t given myself a chance to finish them. I’ve always lost interest somewhere along the way, or gotten too busy with “real” work, and never saw the challenges through.
If you were also born with the “too much” gene, you probably haven’t finished an art challenge before either. This gene that is absolutely not a character flaw means we’re always going overboard, wanting to make everything grand and over the top.
But our delusions are never rooted in reality and we get disappointed when our big ideas have to take a backseat to reports, or laundry, or procrastination because whose idea was it to do all of that artmaking anyway?
Coming up with a plan
Lucky for us February 23 was the start of The 100 Day Project! An art challenge where you come up with a project and do it for 100 days, the goal being to show up consistently. And this year, we’ve got a plan. We can either:
Chip away at a large piece every day
Or keep it very small
For me, that looks like 100 days of ideas. I have a tiny Art Creation sketchbook, no bigger than my hand, that I’ve started to fill up with ideas for future art I want to make. Not only will this sketchbook be an idea bank I can come back to for inspiration later, but it’s:
Low pressure
Takes less than a minute each day
Something I can do between work and chores
Doesn’t have to be or look like finished art
And that’s what I need in an art challenge I think. Loose rules that make doing the challenge feel easy. I managed to catch up on the eight days worth of ideas that I missed and because they only take a minute or two to do, I’m not worried about falling behind again when life gets busy.
That’s all for this week. Let me know if you’re doing The 100 Days and if you’ve done it before, share your tips.
Until next time,
Jade
Music by Louie Zong
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