I have joined soooo many art challenges on Instagram, and they keep me creating and getting rid of fear. If I create something random, I might think twice or trice if it is worth posting, but when I participate in a challenge, my brain switches from "does it look good? is it IG worthy?" to "submit if completed" So I don't have time to judge myself too harshly and posting everyday gives a sense of satisfaction and achievement regardless of how good I feel my drawing looks.

Before #100dayschallenge, I used to draw and paint once or twice a month because it felt daunting and I felt I wasn't "ready" or "experienced enough" to draw and paint (totally illogical thinking: I better not draw because I haven't drawn enough yet to achieve something good). After that challenge, I got used to paint with watercolors every single day. The resistance I felt towards starting something gradually disappeared and painting became as natural as opening a door. Participating in a public challenge with a fixed time frame definitely changes the game from "I would love to draw better hands someday" (when? how?)  to "I will be joining a challenge and draw 100 hands in 10 days this month" bam. Wishful thinking vs. Actions:

This is a work in progress, after describing my perfect challenge, I realized it sounds too vague, and what makes challenges great is that themes are very precise yet give you space to play with the subject. So far this came to mind, because I want to have solid fundamentals, but this challenge could easily be actually 10 different challenges, one per month.

 

This image is for anyone who might find it useful, I made an erasable board focusing on my art skills practice and the right section is about monthly challenges. Right now I wrote down 2 that interested me for February. I adapted the #500 hands in 1 week (and yes! people have actually completed it, wow) to 100 hands in 10 days.

10 hands per day proved to be too challenging for me, it takes me around 20 mins to draw one hand as I just started learning hand anatomy. So 5 hands a day is the most I have achieved. Following the advice from this class, I'm not giving up, it will take me double the time 20 days, but I'm totally fine with that, I can already see improvement and that makes me super happy!

When I finish this challenge, I will take a break like suggested in the class (I'm actually guilty of starting a new challenge right afterwards and even joining several at once) before starting my next anatomy challenge. I have found that what works the best for me is to alternate different kinds of art challenges: anatomy, then calligraphy, then watercolors, etc.

Thank you Sova! what a great class! I specially enjoyed listening to the artist interviews :D