Tips for your gatherfiltermake100
and my reflections on my previous daily drawing challenges
Eek! This is too long to read by email. If you want to read the whole thing, click on the post to read on the app or desktop.
Hello! I’m so pleased so many of you want to join in with gatherfiltermake100!
I’ve done 100dayproject before; in fact, I’ve done three different challenges like this, where I committed to draw daily like this. The first was a 100dayproject I did during the last summer of the MA (link), the second was a 50dayproject I did after graduation, as I had a sense I would feel quite lost without the structure of the MA. The third was a 100dayproject again, but I wanted to focus on drawing people, so I called it #100daydrawpeople. I learned so much from each one, and as this seems to have gained some momentum, with a number of you joining, I thought I would write a little bit about them, and finish with some tips to help you on days you feel resistant, you don’t have time, or are losing momentum - this is for me too!
When I started my first 100dayproject during the MA, it started quite spontaneously - I needed to do something over the summer - we had been warned on last day of term before the summer break how easy it is to stop working, and how hard it makes it to get back into the flow when you return. They advised us to do something, anything, to keep us going over the summer. When I was at work, before I even knew I was going to do the MA, a friend of mine was doing a 100dayproject and I decided to join in. I don’t think I did more than about 20 days, but it put the idea in the back of my mind. So when it came to that summer, I remembered the 100dayproject, and it seemed to fit perfectly.
I remember starting with a sense of: I don’t know what’s going on. Looking back just now for this post, and reading what I wrote for each post, what struck me is how negative I was about a lot of my drawings. Although I know that I can still have a very loud inner critic, it was interesting to notice I am probably a lot kinder to myself now - although watch this space! I’m sure I will do the same on this project!
I wanted to write a little bit about how it feels to start; I remember every time I’ve done a daily drawing project, a feeling of: but where do I start?! I guess you could call it decision fatigue - too many choices, too many ambitions, too many ideas! And so at first, for me anyway, it always starts a little bit oddly, for want of a better word; but somewhere around day 20 (I know that seems like a while away, but it comes along quicky, I promise!) I begin to get into the groove. Maybe you stir up enough ideas to get going quickly, maybe it’s just being more in the flow (i’ll come back to flow - such a lovely part of it!), maybe it’s momentum, who knows the exact science of it - but I’m glad to be starting armed with that knowledge - and it’s the first thing I wanted to share with you. Think of it like practising keepy-uppys (ha! I’ve never written that before - I’m not even going to Google it for spelling! That thing where you have to keep a ball in the air with your feet. At first, of course you’re going to keep dropping it. But if you practice every day, you’ll start learning how to keep it in the air longer. A strange analogy that popped into my head, as I can’t keepy-uppy (is it a verb!?) for my life! But anyway, you get the gist, I hope!
The second thing I wanted to write about was my skills development. I don’t mean to brag! But you can literally see it over the course of each project. I credit my first 100-dayproject with helping me find my voice1 on the MA. It was the next term that I made my breakthrough, and found the process I use to make my work that I still use to this day - with some further development, of course.
You can see my first 100dayproject over on Instagram. I used the hashtag #Ellamorella100days - labelled each day, so you can literally see (I think) my progress from beginning to end. One of the things that I did on that first project was to practice working in layers because I thought I was going to screenprint my next book - which I didn’t end up doing - but it gave me an objective each day, and in retrospect, making a decision about how I was going to work definitely took away some of the decision fatigue. So that is another big recommendadtion for a project like this. Give yourself an objective. Do you want to practice working in colour? Practice perspective, tone, composition, flowers, nature, people. An objective like this is so helpful for that initial what shall I draw? that can get in the way of actually making work.
As I mentioned at the beginning, I also did a 50dayproject after graduation. That was an interesting one, because I got onto some sort of algorithm wave, and started getting loads of likes and follows during the course of the project. It was exciting, but also a bit destabilising, and I remember being a bit freaked out. The pressure! Also, my feeling was, although I love drawing and painting from observation, I had in my mind my overall aim: to be a children’s book illustrator, and I didn’t want to become known only for the sketchbook work. So although I could have gone on to turn it into a 100dayproject, and probably would have more followers on Instagram right now, it didn’t feel right, so I stopped. I decided to do a project I called #meanderingmay (I tagged my posts #ellamayrella - see what I did there!?) which was designed as a way for me to play, explore, and be the artist I wanted to be, not ruled by the algorithm! It was a strange one, but I really needed a chance to just make some things I wanted to make for a bit, get lost down rabbit holes, be messy, and make mistakes for a bit. In fact, looking back, is that where my Staffordshire figurines obsession started? But despite my ambivalence about the algorithm wave, I created some of my favourite observation sketches in that 50dayproject, and if you have any of my zines, you’ll see lots of my work from this project - and the 100dayproject - in them.
some of my favourite paintings from the project, and some of my bestselling prints!
Finally, I did a 100dayproject drawing people. This was before I started Peter Pan, and I knew I would be drawing lots of people in the book, and I wanted to feel more confident and fluent for it. So I kept this one simple - much less painting - which takes a lot longer - and just a focus on people. I drew my family a lot, which is lovely, because it’s created a lovely archive of past family life. It was great for general people observation, I got better at drawing people on the move, and by the end, just felt more confident in my figure drawing in general and it meant I began Peter Pan feeling ready to go. Although of course, there’s no magic pill that makes everything easy, there were many mountains to climb on that project, but that’s another post! You can see my drawings for that with the hashtag #ellamorella100daypeople over on IG.
So, on to the tips! I meant for this to be a short post, but turns out I have a lot to say about this!
I’ve added a paywall halfway down. I want this project to be for everyone - there’s no cost to drawing in your sketchbook, that’s what’s so great about it! But I want to give value to my paid subscribers, so I’m putting some of this behind a paywall. To celebrate the start of this project, I’m offering 50% off paid subscriptions for a year - just use the button below to get the discount. It’s only open to new subscribers I’m afraid, but if you’ve been with me for a while, you’re most likely on a good rate. I’ve put my prices up recently, to help with running costs. Also, to note, if you’re reading this on an Apple device, they add a hefty percentage if you upgrade directly from them, so if you open Substack on your phone or desktop (not the app) you can join without the additional cost. Let me know if you have any probs with this. And if you want to upgrade, but don’t have the funds, let me know and I can sort you out with a free sub.
Try different locations - by the end, I found that drawing outside made me happier, so outside drawings and paintings dominate, but looking back, I’m interested in the other ones too. I did my friend’s kitchen, cut flowers in jugs, even copied some pictures from my book collection - a bit like we do in Art Club. I think starting with a throw-at-the-wall outlook is a good way to start.
Play with materials - this works two ways I think.
Over the course of the project, I found mixing things up super helpful; trying different materials each day kept things fresh, and gave me new challenges. As the project progressed, I found myself settling into a set of materials that I wanted to figure out, and that’s fine too - useful to practice with the same things for a bit too. But I remember towards the end of the first project I was feeling in a bit of a rut, and so changing my materials up a bit gave me some fresh momentum as my enthusiasm lagged a bit around day 70!
Another thing I found useful for lagging momentum and enthusiasm was to go to an art shop and pick up a couple of new things. Even just a new pencil could refresh me for a bit. This was a fun and useful way to keep me going during lags
Lags - not so much a tip, but just a reminder: you will lag, flag, lose momentum. This list is some tips for you to keep going during those times, but I’m listing it here as well because I think saying to yourself: I will start flagging and want to stop, but I will carry on is a good antidote to use during these times. Remember, it’s natural for you to feel this, but if you keep going anyway, that’s how you keep going!
Quick wins - make a list of things you will do for days when you really just don’t want to do anything, or you simply don’t have time! Last time mine were:
drawing in the dark - drawing in the dark means you have no control about how good or bad it is, and therefore there’s nothing to stop you doing it! I also found it fun! I love the reveal as you come back into the light
