The 100 Day Project: a painting a day

This year I’m tiptoeing into the idea of #the100dayproject by doing a painting each day. If you’re not familiar with the project its a really cool idea – just a loose group of creatives, united in the goal of practicing a thing – any thing – every day for 100 days. It’s a low-pressure way to build a skill by committing to really doing it daily.

I say I’m “tiptoeing” because I wasn’t sure I could fully commit, but I’ve actually been pretty good so far. On the few days I haven’t been able to paint, I’ve doubled up on other days. I’m not sure that’s as effective, but it has at least kept me going. Although this is a goal of mine always, my days can often get away from me, and having this slightly more formal plan helps me to prioritize that bit of creative output. Oddly, it also kind of takes the pressure off. If it’s something I’m doing every single day, each day doesn’t have to be a Painting (capital P), it can just be a sketch. I started off painting the things I could see from my painting desk – our magnolia tree, a lemon tree, a patch of hellebores, my cat… so it’s a little bit of the landscape of my days. Here’s a roundup of some of the recent sketches.