100 days of small self portraits

Well, this is it, another 100 day project is finished. And, to be quite honest, I’m so ready for it to be done. I started to tire of this one around day 50 or so, but then with my new pattern drawing project in July felt another surge of interest in self portraits. But the last 10 have been hard, extremely hard.

Here’s what I will say about this though, I learned A LOT. I learned a lot about pushing through. I learned a lot about how to keep a subject going even if it isn’t exactly what you want to do, and I learned about how to figure out ways to make it fresh.

I also became obsessed with certain mediums, and I came back to them again and again. Pencil, especially a jumbo 6B, became a favorite that I returned to again and again. I got a Kuretake pen from Art Snacks and that became a quick favorite as well, quick line drawings.

I also tried out different styles and stopped worrying about if it was real “art” or not. I just drew, especially on the days where I didn’t want to draw at all.

And I experimented with more than just the face. I did some that included more body, even though I don’t feel exactly comfortable drawing that right now.

But, I went back, again and again, to simple ink or sketchy pencil. It is my favorite and it was how I enjoyed drawing these. The biggest take away from doing two 100 days projects now is that whatever I chose to do I have to be able to complete it in 5 minutes if necessary. Life can be busy, so to do something every day, I’ve learned it needs to be able to be done quickly to fit it into the busy days. I’ve seen this with my other daily drawing monthly projects as well.

I already have a monthly drawing plan for August. I don’t know if I’ll do 100 days ever again. I enjoyed last year a lot, but this year, after doing monthly themes, 100 days got very long for me.

Side note: I used Instagram for this, but then also uploaded my images to Flickr as well. I’ll be leaving Instagram behind now as during these 100 days they implemented their algorithm and it ruined the experience of the app. Interactions dropped off, which is the whole reason I joined Instagram in the first place. But more than anything else, I’m tired of companies thinking they know what I want to see rather than leaving it up to me.