Transcripts
1. Introduction: Hello, and welcome to this
100 days of art challenge. If you're here, this
means two things. One, you're not
afraid of commitment, like most men nowadays. And two, that you really wanted to improve
your creative skills, because that's what I'm
going to promise you. If you stick with me to this
100 days of art challenge, your skills will
improve massively. No matter if you like to draw, if you like to paint,
to do collages, or whatever creative
process you like to do, if you stick to 100
continuous days, you will see a massive
transformation. Hi, my name is Mika, and I call myself the untalented artist.
Why do I say that? Because sometimes when I
show my work to people, they would say something like, Oh, wow, you're so talented. And to be honest, I'm not. I mean, I wasn't
born with this gift. It's something that
I learned over time. And it's something
you can learn, too, because making art is a skill, and skill improves by doing
it. So let's do that. Let's do 100 days of art, and I promise you, you're
going to have fun. I promise you,
you're going to have a collection of art you're
really going to be proud of. Also promise you that you're going to see a massive
transformation, and maybe as a
bonus, you're gonna find your art style. Who knows? Don't focus on that because to be honest, I haven't found mine. I like to try out new things. I love to draw, I
love to sketch. I love to do collages, and I haven't found my
style, and that's okay. I've done this challenge
already twice, and it's gonna be
fun. So let's go. If you're afraid that you
won't be able to stick to 100 days or that your life is just too busy
because that happens. Don't worry, we will address
you all your doubts like, I don't have time, like, I don't know what to draw. I'm not creative, et
cetera, et cetera. So don't worry. I got you. Oh
2. Materials: For this challenge, you can use any material you
like, of course. I will focus on
drawing and collages. So I'm going to use a
sketchbook, some pens, pencils and watercolors, and also some collages
which I'll show you. So, I love to draw
using some pencils. This is a mechanical
pencils from Carin dash. I absolutely love Carin dash. It also has a
sharpener included. And yeah, this is super nice and I also have
a normal pencil. It's also from Carin dash
just because it's pretty. My favorite eraser is
this one from Tambo, because it's very small and
you can erase very easily. Kneadable Ntable eraser. There's different brands. I have a gray one
here or a pink one, and what is super
cool about this that it doesn't leave
any waste behind it. Especially when I'm traveling, I love to use these
ones. What else? I love to use some ink, some pens once
I've finished with my pencil and I have plenty
of them, to be honest. I don't really see
massive difference. A lot of people love
these micron ones from sakura. They're
really good. But to be honest, I've
got one other one here, MRV, 0.3, and one
from Kopi also 0.3. That's more or less the
size I really like. These are two brush
pens and one has a soft top and the other one has a hardtop which they're
really nice as well. I really like to have a
sketchbook that is not too big. I have this one, but I also have another one which is really
nice, which is this one, which has really nice
watercolor paper, where I like to
draw just my days. For example, let me
show you something. Here you can see, I bought
myself some new sunglasses, so I made a little
portrait of myself, and I was on vacation, so I had a beer for sunset. I made a little
little note about it. I was in Grand Canaria
so I draw the islands. We went from 142 to
Grand Canaria and I got a bit sick on the ferry, that's what I showed
there as well. In the end, we ate
some Argentinian food, and I draw that as well. I really like these little
small ones I can take with me. Here I did a drawing
when I went to the Museum of contemporary art and then I just sketched a little bit with the
same colors as well. Here you can see on the bottom, I did the handstand workshop, so I drew myself while
trying to handstand. And then I also had a flight from Palma
Demorca to Zurich, and I sketched my
in flight snacks. I think these little
sketchbooks are really nice for traveling,
for bringing with you. And yeah, this one is especially good for watercolor
because it has a bit of a rough surface. This one from Sakura
has a softer surface. For watercolor, it's
not the perfect thing, but you can still use
it like I did here. But I really like this one also to for using some
acrylic markers, like you can see on this page, here I used some of Sharpie I really like
this one, actually. I got them from a
subscription book, an art subscription box and I really like
the Sharpie ones. Probably the Posca ones as well. They're very famous
and to be honest, everybody loves them, but don't get me wrong,
they're not bad. But for the prices because
they're not cheap, I do believe that the
Sharpies are much better. That's just my personal opinion. But yes, I've got
this sketchbook, which can be good
for everything. I also did some
some collages here, which I think are super cute. And here I tried out
some alcoholic markers. These are not perfect on this sketchbook because
it will bleed through. I actually just painted the entire page with black and one day that
I feel inspired, I'm going to do
something on top. So yeah, I like this
little sketchbook that I can bring with me and also I don't have this fear of having a big page
that I need to fill. For me, these are
really helpful, especially for this
100 day Art challenge. You, you know, it takes ten, 15 minutes to do a
little art project. My favorite watercolors,
I have also plenty, but I'm going to show you two, and one is the from Van Gogh and also palette which
I can bring with me. I made a little paper
with the watches we know what colors
I have in here and it also comes
with already a brush, which I think is super
helpful as well. I don't have to carry
an extra brush. I do actually most of
the things with this. Of course, it's not perfect
for bigger surfaces, but as I have a small
sketchbook, this is perfect. And yes, Van Gogh, this didn't came exactly in
this configuration. I configurd it myself
with the colors I wanted. One of my favorite
is this indigo blue. This one, I always do
the titles with them. It's my absolute favorite. And also the natural tint because it's not
a complete black, but it's super good for putting some shadows
and some darker areas. Then I also really like
these viva colors. No, V viva colors. They're also super small, super light to carry, and they have beautiful colors. As you can see here, there's a little swatches on
the side as well, and as you can tell, I've been using this
as well quite a bit. I also want to show you one of my favorite
books and it's called Palette Perfect from
Lauren vaga Vega. I don't know how
to pronounce it. But at the beginning,
especially for me, it was quite hard to combine colors that
really look good. So that's why I bought this book and I
really think it helps to find perfect
color combinations. There's so many ideas here, and you can also see
there's different topics. This one is called fresh, so you have fresh colors. This one we call magical dreamy, so many beautiful
pictures as well. So I really recommend this book if you want
to have a look at it. Another thing that really
helped me is the color wheel. If you don't know
about the color wheel, have a look at it. It's very, very helpful
because you just, um, the easiest thing to
do is just choose two colors that are opposite
of the color wheel. For example, if on one hand, you have purple
on the other one, on the other side, you
can see there is yellow, and these two colors go
really good together. Now, if you like art
supplies as much as I do, I know the temptation of just running out and go
buy new art supplies. But shall we make a deal? If you reach day 50, you can go out and
buy something, and if you reach day 100, you go and spend all you want
on your art supplies. Deal?
3. Your Project: Every big journey starts
with the first step. So that's going to
be your project. Show me your day number one. If you don't know what
to draw or what to do for day number
one, don't worry. I got you. Let's go to the next lesson together and create day
number one together.
4. Day 1: So if you go to the
resource section, I've created a
daily habit treker. That means that every day
that you did your daily art, you can make a thick and
you can color it out, and this is really going to help you stay motivated as well. You can find this in
a resource section, so download it, print it, or you can also add it to your favorite drawing
app on your iPad, for example, and there's
three versions of it. One is a very simple one, where you can also do a title, maybe with some lettering. And one already has the title with a very
simple Helvetica, font, daily Rt tracker,
and with some numbers. The last one has more archy
title if you prefer this one. Choose the one you prefer, and then let's make it pretty. So let's do one together. I took some watercolor here, just some purple watercolor and just splashing on the page. Very simple and easy. I actually made three
of these slashes. There is one at the
bottom, as well, but you cannot see
it at the moment. You will see it later. And the paper also is not ideal for this,
but it doesn't matter. Indian, it's going
to look very pretty, and this is a very
simple way to create some flowers because
then I let it dry and I took my micron brush pen and just throw some very
simple loose flowers, and I put some dots in it as well to just make it
a bit more interesting. And then I'm going
to do the same with the little splash on the top
and the one at the bottom. I think it's always a good
idea to actually have a composition of odd
number of elements. So for example, on this page, I did three flowers. It's always a good idea to
do three or five or seven. It usually looks much more
balanced on the page than just an even number,
like two or four. So as you can see, it's very, very easy to do the number one. So the most important
thing is to start. It's like when you
go to the gym, you know, the first 5 minutes
are the most important. And once you started, I am sure you're going
to stick to it. And this art tracker should also help you
to stay motivated. So if you do a thick or you
color the number every day, I'm sure you're going
to stay motivated for the entire challenge. And I want to show
you one more example. I did this collage, which I really enjoy doing with just a lot of stickers,
different papers. And yeah, this is another
example of how you could decorate your daily art
tracker for day number one.
5. Tips to stay consistent: So, yes, 100 days is a lot. It's almost one third of a year, so it's natural that your
motivation will go up and down. So I do have a few tips for you that will stay
you help consistent. So the first one is break
it into small goals. If you think I have
to do something for 100 days, that's scary. But if you think something like, I'll do this for seven days, for one week only, it seems
like a little challenge, right? So let's do that. Let's focus on the first week. Once you have completed
the first week, you focus on the first ten days. After the first ten days, you focus on the first two
weeks, et cetera, et cetera. And I promise you, once
you have reached day 50, you don't want to stop because it's a natural habit already because you don't want to
e your entire challenge. So you just have to
make it till day 50. After that, it will feel
natural, I promise. The second tip is start small. You don't have to make a
masterpiece every single day. You can do ten to 15
minutes each day. Sometimes even two to 3
minutes, it's enough. I've done this challenge twice, and sometimes it was
a little sketch, a little scribble that I did on a piece of paper while
I was traveling. So anything can be art. So remember, done is
better than perfect. Next tip is, think
about your why. Why are you doing
this challenge? Do you want to become
a professional artist? Do you just want to relax? Do you want to
improve your skills? Whatever it is, write it down. We do you why because one day that you're
not going to be motivated, you can
go back to that. It's like, Okay, yes, I do want to do this because I
want to improve my skills. That's my why. That's why I will keep doing it. Tip number four would
be habit stacking. Have you heard of
this? It's when you want to introduce a new habit. The smartest thing to do is
to stack it to another habit. For example, you wake up every morning and you
brush your teeth. And the next thing
you're going to do is prepare some tea
or some coffee, and then you stick
to new habit there. Do ten to 15 minutes of drawing
of painting of collages, whatever your art form is. And it's going to be easier
to keep doing that because it's together with another
habit. Can be anything. It can be give some
food to your pet, to your cat and dog and then
add ten to 15 minutes there. Try to find a habit and then attach your art habit to that. Last but not least
is accountability. Tell people that you're
doing this challenge. Share it on
Instagram, on TikTok, on YouTube, wherever
you want to share it. If you share it with the world, you will feel obliged
to continue doing it. I always shared my 100
days in Instagram. And probably nobody would
have written me like Mika. You missed day 56, but I had the feeling that I needed to post it
every single day. So if you want to
share your progress, super happy to connect
with you on Instagram. And if you want to tag me, my name is At cupcake Mika. So let's connect and take each other accountable
during this challenge.
6. Cheat sheet - when life gets in the way: So I know that 100
days are quite a lot, and I believe there are going
to be some days where it's just impossible for us to take
the time and do some art. So I have a few
cheat codes for you. Number one, batch your art. You feeling really
creative on one day, do more than one piece. That's totally fine. Also, I called this
100 day art challenge. So if you think of it,
everything can be art. Take a cool photo. That's art. Make a nice outfit. That's art, doodle
or write something. That's art. Anything can be art. Also, I'm giving you three bonus passes.
What does this mean? That sometimes you
really can't have nothing left in your camera
roll that you can post today. You have no energy. You're
not feeling creative. You're too busy. That's
okay. But don't stop. This doesn't mean you have
to stop with the challenge. You have three bonus passes for three days that you are
not going to be creative. And that's totally fine, okay? Give yourself permission
to have a day off. You have three days
off in 100 days. I think that's super fair.
And in the resource section, you can also find this
um bonus passes if you want to print them out and put them on your daily checker. Or you can create your
bonus passes by yourselves, design them, create them, paint them, draw them, and you already have three days done of your 100 day challenge.
7. My favorite drawing tips & tricks: My favorite thing is to draw and then use
some watercolors. So I would love to share my favorite tips
for this practice. The most important
thing to remember is that drawing is
really observing. Observation is key. I think the easiest thing
is that I show you. Let's do a quick exercise. Go get a piece of paper
and a pen or a pencil. It's not that important, and we're going to be
drawing something. Okay, now. Draw this picture. I know I know it looks very
hard, but don't worry. It should just be
a simple sketch. It doesn't have to be perfect. I give you about
30 seconds for it. So let's go. Now, let's look at
the drawing together. Did you draw the entire head? Did you draw an elbow? Did you draw both shoulders? If you did, no worries. That's absolutely normal. Why? Because our brain likes to complete
uncompleted things. So in real life, when we want to start drawing realistically or more
or less realistically, we really should observe what are we seeing
in front of us. I think this is a
beautiful practice. It is a mindfulness
practice, to be honest, because you really focus on
what is in front of you. So another great tip is to draw the same object
multiple times. You can also use
different media, maybe pen and watercolor
and the other one, you want to use
some acrylic paint, some gouache, et cetera. So try it out and you will see a different
result every time. The next two tips are
really basic as well. If you already have
some experience, you might want to skip this, but I think this really helped
me to improve my skills. The first one is
use basic shapes. Whatever you want to draw, usually you can see some
basic shapes in it. Try to figure out these basic shapes and
then draw them first. It will really help you also
matter of perspective and size and put it on the paper before you go into
more details later. And the other one is to
look at the negative space. Sometimes to look at
the empty area around the subject really helps you to define the
subject itself.
8. What to actually draw: Unless you have one subject that you paint or draw all the time, probably one day, you're
going to be like, What should I draw today? This happens to me quite a lot because I
don't stick to one thing. Sometimes I like
to draw portraits, then I like to draw animals, then I like to paint
some extra art. So if you're a
little bit like me, I'm going to give you some
ideas on what you can draw. So in the resource section, I'm actually going to give you
100 ideas on what to draw. But here are my favorite ones. First one, I love to draw
or to sketch my day. For example, what I had for breakfast or if I
went to a cafe, if I went to have
lunch, I really like to draw my daily day. It's very easy. It can
be a simple thing. It can be a book
that you're reading, I can what you had for
breakfast, et cetera. The second thing that I really
like too are portraits. These are really, really hard, to be honest, but I
really like them. So my tip is go and search for a good
Skillshare course and do a Skillshare course about
portraits if you're interested because there's
many things to look at. And at the beginning,
my portraits really look like
aliens to be honest. But with time, they
went better and better. I also really like
the app museum. Have a look at it,
download it because people upload their picture
and you can draw them. And then you share them,
and it's really fun. You can also upload your
picture if you want to, and some people will draw you. I think that's a really fun
app, so have a look at it. Another good tip is
to do weekly topics. For example, I do one
week full of animals, or I would do one week is about journaling or one week
is collages, et cetera. Just have fun with it. M.
9. Final words & outtakes: And that's it for this course. I really hope you
enjoyed my tips. I really hope you're going
to stick to this challenge. And if you reach Day 100, I would absolutely love to
see it in a project section. If you have any questions, please comment it also
in the comment section, and I'm happy to have a discussion with
you about anything. This is my first
Skillshare course. So if you have some
feedback for me, please, please, please tell me. I would really appreciate
some feedback. And I also would really
appreciate if you could give me a review and maybe hit the follow button because I promise you there
will be more courses to come. Thank you very much, and I wish you so much fun
with this challenge. And cook a lot. No, I am. Two, two or three pieces. One. La music for 30 seconds. Another great tip is to draw the same object object, object. Object. It's not that hard. Object. Object, same object. Okay, again. Okay. Should
I stop? Yeah, I guess.
Mika Simmen, colorful self-taught artist
