on drawing every day for a month (it was so hard)
hey friends,
happy halloweeeeen! 🎃
i suppose there’s nothing scarier than trying something new and “failing”, right?? 🥲
in case you haven’t been following me along, this past month I tried drawing and posting every day, following along with @furrylittlepeach’s drawing challenge Peachtober. i even wrote a whole blog about how I prepped for the challenge (here’s the link in case you wanna read it).
I was feeling super confident that i would be able to make it through the 31 days, but I lost steam after day 14 ☹️
I wasn’t going to center this month’s post around this… almost to try and hide the shame I was feeling from not finishing, but, I think it’s important to not only show the bright and shiny side of trying to be an artist today. there’s also lots of messy moments in between.
my goals for this drawing challenge were:
prioritize and reconnect with my art practice
push my style and draw things i’ve never considered drawing before
be more active on social media
enjoy the process
I prepped everything beforehand, starting the challenge 1 week before to try to have some days off in between, i had my materials and area ready, and drew some sketches beforehand.
for each of the prompts, i also wanted to take a photo and post a reel/tiktok of the process too, to help me see if this would help my engagement and reach on my social media channels.
looking back
now, it’s the end of the month, and I’ve had some time to reflect on my goals and what happened along the way. at the start of the challenge, I was very motivated and was able to always find a moment to finish my painting, take the photo and make the reel/tiktok. when
i am really proud that i was making time for my art practice, even while balancing client work and other projects in between. i was really nervous when it came to drawing things i hadn’t drawn before, but, since i was committed to the challenge and knew i had to post that day, i was able to push through that fear in a quicker way. i made a routine for myself of creating the content i was going to share on my socials and really tried my best to enjoy the ride, even the uncomfortable bits.
where things went wrong
i started a week beforehand to have some days to rest in between, but then i got sick right at the start of the challenge and used up most of those days. i was still able to push through that though and keep going. once i reached the point where i was on a daily painting-posting schedule, that’s sort of where i lost my groove.
i didn’t realize how much having those buffer days was helping me. once the challenge started overwhelming me, i felt art blocked, and thats when i decided i needed to stop. one of my goals was to enjoy the process and it suddenly became unenjoyable for me.
making the decision to stop was tough because i felt like a failure.
i had to take a moment and process why i was feeling this so intensely. I realized that it was necessary for me to stop because I need to listen to how I’m feeling and not ignore when I’m feeling anxious or overwhelmed by something. i had to tell myself that it’s okay for me to not finish this challenge. no one is pressuring me to finish except for me and i had to allow myself to give myself grace, kindness and flexibility to stop.
learnings
i am so proud of myself and how far i was able to go in this challenge! i learned a ton about how i like to make art and what kind of environment suites me. i also learned to use new mediums which was fun and frustrating along the way.
another learning was also to listen to myself and know when to stop. there were uncomfortable moments where i knew i needed to push through, but once the challenge gave me anxiety, i’m proud of myself for knowing that i needed to stop and to not make myself feel bad about it.
i realized that posting both photos and short form content daily didn’t have a big impact on my engagement or reach on my social channels. this could be for a ton of reasons, but it does help relieve some of that pressure of feeling like you have to post every day. maybe it’s not about the quantity of posts, but taking the time to show off your art in your own way.
final result (ﾉ◕ヮ◕)ﾉ*:･ﾟ✧
i’m going to take my own advice from my previous post and finish the challenge at my own pace. i’ll let you all know how it’s going along the way. if you joined in on Peachtober this year, i hope you enjoyed the process and had fun.
Thanks for reading :·)
With love and until next time,
