100 days of flowers challenge COMPLETE!
I am exhausted and shocked! I am beyond humbled by all the support, praise, and comments I have received during this challenge and I want to say thank you for all the support. When it got hard, it was the kind DM’s that would spur me on, when I was unsure of my work and wanted to delete it because I wasn’t sure if it was good enough, it was the awesome comments that made me realise I was being melodramatic. So, thank you for supporting me as I stumbled through this task.
“You don’t have to be great to start, but you have to start to be great.” Zig Ziglar
I started the challenge on the 14th on January, it has taken slightly longer than 100 days to complete, but the focus of the challenge was to draw every day. Whilst I might not have shared my results daily, I did indeed draw every day since the start of the challenge.
I did all of this on a whim. I hadn’t considered the logistics of it, I made no plan. I was pretty daft to be honest. I threw myself in headfirst, not thinking, and within a few days the reality hit me and I realised I’ve never even completed a 30-day challenge or Inktober, best I’d managed was 27 days. And here I was thinking I could take on 100 with no thought into it.
However, I did it and I’m super proud of everything I achieved and looking through the 100 I can see all the little points at which I had a change in style or skill and I think by the end of it I have a more rounded idea of how I enjoy working visually. That all said, I made so many mistakes and I learned a heck of a lot too, like how not to start a daily drawing challenge!
What did I learn?
Don’t take on a challenge without a plan. You wouldn’t go and run a marathon without training. This is applicable in all challenges. My goal was to draw daily, I should have maybe tried to have a few weeks of doing this before committing to a challenge. It sounds a bit ridiculous, how is it so hard to draw a flower every day? The point is making any change in routine to add a new thing or take something out is going to be met with resistance and some difficulty. Trying to find time to do even just one small drawing a day can be a massive task all on its own. So, start small and build up.
Find the pockets. I learned to make time in my day and found that there are many pockets and bubbles of time throughout the day which can be utilised for quick sketches and drawings. I remember when I was a teenager, my Dad wanted to learn to juggle and for about 6 months he had balls all over the house so he could pick up and practice in and around whatever task he was doing. I’m not going to lie, there were times I was at the table at dinner time sketching whilst I ate. Etiquette, what is that?
Manage your expectations. This is good life advice in general and such a bloody difficult thing to do. During this challenge though, I had to remind myself often that the goal is to draw daily, not to create a masterpiece daily. I’ve spent years procrastinating and second guessing myself because of my own perceived idea of perfection. It’s stupid, don’t fall for it. You’re not a good enough judge of anything to know what perfection is and you will never live long enough to develop the skill to achieve it. Fools errand.
“That’s all any of us are: amateurs. We don’t live long enough to be anything else.” Charlie Chaplin
Don’t look at the numbers. I repeat and say it louder DON’T LOOK AT THE NUMBERS. If you ever want to feel instantly demotivated, take 5 mins comparing your Instagram likes and reach to other artists. When you start sharing content daily, you’ll notice that your Instagram or social media of choice will begin to gain more engagement, likes and followers. That can be really pleasing to see, but it can become a dangerous game of playing popular, which is not a fun game to play. You’ll see what did well for you, try to achieve it again, before you know it your off course and your account is taunting you from the side-lines telling you you’re not keeping up in the race, that you’re falling behind and maybe you should give up because there are so many people ahead of you. Stop it, it is all nonsense. Social media is a great tool for helping you share your work and reach an audience but it is not the only tool for that and it is nothing more than that, it does not define success and how well you are doing in life. YOU DEFINE THAT. I need to get this entire paragraph tattooed to me somewhere, as a permanent reminder.
People are awesome. So, when you stop freaking out about social media, likes, follows, reach and all the other rubbish and continue to chip away at your goal, you’ll start to see there are people cheering you on. It is incredibly humbling when you find there are people who can see what you are trying to achieve and love what you are offering to the world. These people are amazing, let them know that. Thank you, you amazing cheerleaders.
I really love drawing. I’ve always wanted to be an illustrator (since being an adult, as a child I wanted to be a “Jesus” – I didn’t know it wasn’t a job, I just liked the idea of helping people, or a vet – until I realised it meant killing animals, or a geologist – my high school science teacher told me I was too good to be a geologist, I don’t know what she thought I was too good at to waste it doing geology, but I still love rocks.) Anyway! In the past, I would have bouts of intense drawing, and seriously intense burn out where it wouldn’t touch pen or paper for months and would often conclude that I hate drawing and I don’t want to do this after all, but I always come back to it. The problem was I had a rather unhealthy creative/work relationship. Since drawing daily for the past 5 months, I have reignited my passion and found that drawing fills my heart with absolute pure joy and the problem was never drawing but rather the way I would not take care of myself when partaking in the activity.
Conclusion
I’ve probably learned more that I haven’t been able to fully decompress and digest yet so for now I’ll leave it at that. Through all the stuff that goes on in and out of life, in the world, in your world. If there is something you want to do and it feels too big or like there’s no time, know this: if it matters to you and you want to do it, you will find the time, you will find the opportunity. Life goes on, the world keeps spinning, so just crack on with what you want to do, be it drawing daily, running a marathon, or learning how to juggle.
Thank you for reading, thank you for your support and good luck to you if there is a challenge you want to take on, you CAN do it.
If you enjoy my work and want to see it hanging in your home then why not pop over to my SHOP .
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