The 365-days sketch challenge
The TL;DR of it: I learnt that when you align your actions with what your heart truly wants, magic happens.
And now for the story.
Why did I decide to take up the daily sketch challenge?
Art has been a part of my life since childhood. Some of my happiest memories are that of making abstract scribbles on walls, on the floor – any surface where I could make marks. Fortunately, my mother noticed my inclination early on and nurtured my talent. Art was always encouraged in my household since my parents are musicians. Throughout my school, I ended up making numerous paintings, and winning art contests at national level. As I moved to college and then to university, academics took priority and art took a back seat. And once I got a job, art came to a halt.
But it was always on my mind, unexpressed. Whenever I admired a great painting by an artist, there would always be this little voice nudging me to go grab a paintbrush. I would snub it out, thinking – “this isn’t the right time for it”. This continued for at least a good ten years until I decided – that the right time ain’t ever coming. The right time is now when I create it.
And so I decided to not reason with my head anymore (I know, an oxymoron!) and just act on my heart. I’m not one to take up New Year resolutions, but in 2021 I did. I vowed to myself that I would create one sketch every day, no matter how small or how bad. What matters is putting the pencil on the paper and making a mark. And showing up for that little voice.
When the novelty wears off
Whenever one takes up a new initiative, there is always fresh energy about it. There is fire in the belly. My new routine never took me more than 20 mins on an average. Most times, even less – down to a minute. I chose to stick to plain ink, sometimes using just a ball pen, to keep the task simple and achievable. I kept no expectations of creating good quality work, as I didn’t want that pressure on me. I would also keep the sketchbook and pen arranged right on my desk, in plain view, so that I wouldn’t have to make an effort to ‘set-up’. Basically, I tried to remove all the friction points that could potentially become an alibi for not sketching.
And then, in just over a month, I lost interest. As I couldn’t see any progress up until then, I let it go. After a few weeks of no sketching, I reminded myself of what I wanted to become as a result of this challenge. I pulled myself back up to continue what I started. This time around, I stuck to it for good. Fortunately, I met a good artist community online which was very supportive and encouraging. That active engagement helped me immensely to stay on for the long term despite a few blips. It also gave me accountability for my daily habit by making my commitment public.
Entering the ‘flow’
At the start of the year-long challenge, I had told myself that I would stick to a simple tool, like a micron marker, to make the habit easy to develop. However, a few months in, I couldn’t resist trying out some new art mediums. I tried watercolours, alcohol markers, gouache, charcoal, and any other medium that caught my eye.
About six months in, I started to quite like the quality of my work and deeply enjoy the art process. The time constraint of spending on an average of 20 mins on a piece helped me to loosen up my sketches. It became vital in developing my own art style. I was able to give back to the art community that had cheered me on, by bringing in quite a few new comers, sharing their work, hosting art challenges like the 1-min art challenge.
I was so overwhelmed by the possibilities of interpretation, that I ended up using the same reference to create 5-6 different versions – varying in styles, tools, techniques and mood. I also wrote a guide on ‘How to create multiple interpretations of the same subject’ based on my experience.
Bouncing back from setbacks
I had a second setback towards the end of the year due to my family and I being struck by COVID. After a gap of about a month, I was able to bounce back to my daily routine, thanks to the immense love and support from the art community. At the end of the year, looking back at the 300-odd art pieces, I felt incredibly proud. There was a definite improvement in the quality of work from when I started the challenge to when I completed it. Having completed four sketchbooks gave me a wonderful feeling of accomplishment. Technically, I did not complete the 365-day challenge, since I missed a couple of months. However, my goal was to make sketching a part of my daily life, in which I succeeded. Skipping a couple months doesn’t matter, when I now look at the overall quantity and the quality of work created.
Unexpected value-add
Surprisingly, at the end of this habit formation, I got so much more value than what I had initially expected. To name a few:
- A renewed sense of inspiration and confidence in my art skills. I began to stop doubting and start believing in my ideas and my abilities. I proved to myself by showing myself that my own instincts were worth acting on.
- Infusing my life with more creativity.
- Seeing my unique and recognisable art style develop over the months.
- Engaging with a wonderful global community of artists.
- As a new artist, I received a lot of support and encouragement from the art community. I paid it forward via supporting new artists, hosting exciting art challenges and freely sharing my art experiences, learnings and tutorials with them.
- Seeing people taking inspiration from my art, in turn driving them into creating their own creative interpretations.
- Exploring many different tools like watercolours, gouache, charcoal and graphite.
- Discovering how to interpret the same subject in multiple ways, by changing a variety of parameters such as tools, point of focus, perspective, styles, time and emotion.
- The inexplicable feeling I get when flipping through a finished sketchbook.
- Exploring places and world cultures through virtual travel sketches.
Learnings on developing a new habit
Looking back, these are some of my learnings from starting a new habit and sticking to it, which could very well be applied to other aspects of life such as health, wellness, work and relationship.
- Tie the habit to an aspect of your identity to help answer the ‘Why‘. The task has to be meaningful to you. For example, I wanted to sketch everyday because I wanted to go back to being an artist.
- Keep the habit small, achievable and easy, especially in the beginning, so that there aren’t any excuses to not do it. It is very important to show up for yourself everyday, however tiny the action.
- Track daily accomplishment in any manner possible – either as a personal journal entry, or as a public post. Looking back over the accomplishment from time to time provides the motivation to keep going. It is a reinforcing feedback loop.
- Don’t fret over losing a streak, so long as you bounce back on track as quickly as possible.
- Join a related community to help in active engagement and accountability. Celebrating milestones and having people to cheer for you is very crucial.
- Trust the process. When you focus on the everyday little things, the big things get taken of by themselves. There won’t be any perceivable change from day to day. But over time, the result compounds and the progress is very evident.
- The greatest sense of happiness comes not from the end result (which is a fleeting emotion), but rather from the process of becoming.
If developing good habits is something you want to try, I highly recommend reading Atomic Habits by James Clear.
I went from being unprepared, not ready and doubting my skills for many years, to making art a part of my daily life in a year. Sketching is now something that I look forward to every day. In 2022, I continue to sketch regularly. However, I don’t feel the need to track it on a daily basis as it has now become second nature. I carry a pocket sketchbook wherever I go.
Feel free to check out my artwork at @sketchyup.