One hundred days later...

And I'm so over it.

The good news?

I did one hundred things in a sketchbook (well, two books actually - overspill).

The bad news?

It didn’t really work as I’d - probably foolishly and naïvely - hoped.

Is anyone surprised? Add your “I told you so” here…

My original aim

To develop a sketchbook/art-making habit by doing something, anything, in my sketchbook, within a very small daily time limit.

Read more about my original intent here.

I deliberately kept it “anything” and instead imposed a time limit, because I’d got my fingers burned before:

• 2023 was “a page in a sketchbook” which of course led to much faff, no idea what to do each day, became too much, got dropped.

• 2022 was “a thumbnail sketch” in a tiny notebook. Easy to complete, extremely portable, and definitely embedded the ‘sketch something every day’ habit for the year (and a good long time beyond, too). Stupidly, I didn’t think it was interesting enough to do again, and I admit, I wanted to achieve something more than only an inch square, as if size matters more than the actual doing. If only I could rewind the clock and give myself a good talking to.

The clever part

You may remember, I devised a system which I dubbed ‘Izzy’s Progression’ - a clever way to add a subtle increase in the number of minutes spent creating every day, with the hope that the increase would be so subtle and gradual that whoosh! as if by magic by the end of the 100 days I’d have a suitably significant daily-art-making habit effortlessly embedded. Genius.

Except it wasn’t

Pretty soon, I started to get far too attached to the outcome (the finished page) and not the container (the period of time spent creating).

There are reasons.

• Firstly, I have ADHD and I forgot all about the time limit. Even though it was there to support me, and was my own clever idea: carefully thought out, logical, achievable. Which makes it almost guaranteed to fail. This sort of thing happens on a daily basis and it’s maddening.

• Secondly, social media.

The social media excuse is completely laughable because I really am very haphazard about posting. Not only did I keep forgetting to take photos and post the day’s sketchbook page, when I did post, I wanted each post to look “good” (whatever that means) and for them all to vaguely hang together as a group of 100. Which meant that I started to care about what each page looked like. Fatal error.

Not only am I undecided enough to have two Instagram accounts (reasons in a nutshell: stitch vs paint) but my sketchbook pages all ended up very different. Not for me the delightful aesthetic of small pieces all united with a chic style and general put-together-ness.

found_fabric

A post shared by @found_fabric

Exhibit A - I dream of being as artfully restrained as Barry. All recycled fabrics, too 🥰

anna_e_baker

A post shared by @anna_e_baker

Exhibit B - I love how Anna has experimented, yet kept it together as a cohesive whole with her colours and marks.

Not me. Mine’s is a complete hotch-potch of ideas. On the one hand, this is good. It means I experimented, I tried different things, I’m not afraid to make a mess. But on the other hand, it means I get comments such as “a lot is happening there”. It was truly meant as a compliment, but the implied ‘lot going on’ makes me a bit squirmy. I know it’s true, but I wish it wasn’t. Which is also ridiculous. It’s ME!!

The whole 100 plus one extra that sneaked in, bottom right

What was good

Looking through is a bit like a diary - I can remember what I was doing, how I was feeling. I don’t keep a written diary (tried, failed) so a daily sketchbook gives me something to hang on to, otherwise days, weeks, months, years begin to blur. Slightly mixed feelings about this, as sometimes I want to move on and forget - particularly if it was an unhappy time.

There were definite phases and repeating ‘moves’ during the whole 100 days. And yet, the expanse of time and the expectation of doing ‘something’ allowed me space to try things, develop ideas, see what emerged…

• The quick sketch with a biro or rollerball (usually of my left hand, after all, it’s always there)

• The journal collage (scribbled stream of consciousness with added collage scraps)

• The scrappy collage from desk detritus (without the thought download first)

• The gelli-printing scrap phase, after printing a whole heap of papers for a personal project (a gift for my niece)

• The rebellious phase: chopping up, and paint flinging

• Experiments with adding stitch: as mark making and also construction

• Felt tip play - colouring in, mark-making, playing with water-soluble meets rain

• Playing with acrylic skins pulled from the old paint on my work table (much more fun than tidying up, which is what I should’ve been doing) which led to…

• A large chunk of experimentation creating painted and stitched tissue paper.

Tissue paper is generally used in collage to add translucent layers of colour and marks, with no discernible hard edges. My aim during this phase was to explore the possibilities of using tissue paper to add stitch to a firm surface, such as a wood panel or canvas, without having to ‘stitch through’. I love the idea of adding stitch to a painting in an ‘invisible’ way like this.

Because the stitch on these experimental pages is on the tissue, not the sketchbook, I had to experiment with different methods of actually stitching the stuff on the machine. All very good and noble and furthering my knowledge of what I can do with machine embroidery, BUT….it all went well beyond the time limit for each day. And ever the teacher, I got caught up in the weeds with how I could teach my findings…

Seaweed printing followed swiftly after (see my previous post here) which only left a handful of days to complete. By now, I was completely fed up with the amount of time it was taking (doh!! if only I’d remembered my original intent) and I wanted something soothing and easy.

Yonks ago, I bought a mini course from Helen Wells and hadn’t done more than the first two pages (and even then, I didn’t follow instructions). So the first morning back from the beach, in need of an easy win, I dug out my password and watched the next video: ink and water. Quick, easy, the perfect nudge. I was off again, following my own path.

And wouldn’t you know…these last few pages are some of my favourites from the whole exercise. I could so easily spend all day colouring away with my felt tips. I’m beginning to think they’re a seriously underrated and underused tool in my personal art arsenal.

Ah, felt-tip fingers - the stuff of childhood memories

What else is good? I guess, I finished? I did one hundred? And I scratched the itch on some things I’d thought of trying but never got round to (seaweed gelli prints, stitching on tissue paper).

What was bad

1. I haven’t embedded a daily art habit. In fact, I’m glad the damn thing is over and I don’t have to keep producing pages to log on Instagram.

2. Some things (the same things I’d wanted to explore: seaweed printing, stitching on tissue paper, felt-tips and inks in the rain) took too much time and stretched over several days. I didn’t actually have that time to spare, so of course now I resent that I put time into this stupidly arbitrary project and not into the actual concrete projects I promised myself I’d do this year. So no, I don’t feel good about it at all.

3. The time limit was too random. Doh! I designed it to be random but ultimately it worked against me, as I didn’t know what I should be doing when.

4. I didn’t set a regular time, at least, not for the first 90 days. Lately, I’ve been reasonably successful getting to my desk by 8am (I’m up at six, so anything later seems tardy) and have to admit, I like getting some felt-tip action in early. Better late than never, and time will tell if I stick with this now the project’s over (and also once term ends and I no longer need the dawn reveille).

5. I definitely do not love a lot of the pages I made. They were intriguing, amusing or diverting* at the time, but I’m not particularly excited by them. Combined with my resentment from no. 2, there’s a definite bleurgh feeling to the whole project.

*channelling Joanna Lumley’s Mary Smiling from Cold Comfort Farm: “things are either amusing or diverting - never fun”.

What did I learn?

Apart from “never ever do this again”?

• Limits need to be CLEARLY DEFINED - size, time, medium - and RIGIDLY UPHELD

• MVP needs to be defined from the get-go. Minimum Viable Product. What’s the ABSOLUTE MINIMUM required to get a ‘tick’ in the box, another day notched up on #the100dayproject prison wall? Unless this is as easy as ‘make one mark in 10 seconds’ it ain’t gonna happen, at least, not consistently, because life does.

• And on a broader note, before even cracking open a new sketchbook, what is my aim BEYOND the 100 days? Where am I trying to get to?

• And is #the100dayproject the best way to achieve that?

• Importantly, who am I trying to impress, and what am I trying to prove? Because if that’s the motivation, stop right there. This is not the answer. Sure, it might provide some useful insights in the end, but probably not in the way that’s hoped for. Up to you to take that gamble.

Luckily, it ended on a positive note

I rediscovered the absolute joy of using ink and felt-tips, creating colourful shapes and marks in a totally intuitive way. It’s like creating imaginary worlds, being eight years old all over again. Except this time, nobody’s going to take my felt pens away from me (sad but true story…)

Best of all, it’s reignited that feeling I remember from childhood, wishing for a ‘wet playtime’ so I could unzip my fluffy pencil case of felt-tip pens, and drift off into a little dreamland.

Did you do #the100dayproject?

How did you get on? Did you manage to get through, and achieve what you wanted? Or did you fall off the wagon?

From what I can see, people are in one camp or the other - quitting early and not making it much past 30, or gritting their teeth and carrying on until the end (I’m stubborn, so that was me, even though it did me no favours).

It can definitely be a fantastic exercise in creating an art habit, and I’m not sure I’m completely over it, despite what I said at the very top…but I do think there needs to be some very careful thought before setting forth, otherwise it’s a bit like going on a 100 mile trek wearing flip flops and forgetting the midge repellent.

Onwards and upwards!

Until next time, thank you for reading

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