Behind the Art: 100 Days of Charcoal
In early April of 2020 I decided to start a personal challenge. After having been quarantined in my apartment for about a month, I was itching for a way to spend my time constructively. I started by making a list - an instruction taken from a Skillshare class, “The Perfect 100 Day Project: Your Guide to Explosive Creative Growth” by product designer, Rich Armstrong. Rich suggested making eight columns on a page and listing out varying ideas.
After making my list, the main item that ended up molding my challenge was the concept of texture.
I knew that I would likely do a 100 day project based around the portraiture that I love making because I wanted to make sure I was doing something each day that would be comfortable. The challenge came with the concept of texture. A project made entirely with charcoal style brushes would be a nice change to the watercolor style I’d started portraits with two years ago. I’d been wanting to change up the brushes that I use for a long time. I felt that my style had come a long way but it lacked an essence that’s hard to put a name on. After much thought I realized that that essence was texture. It looked too digital for my liking.
I missed the raw feeling of drawing on paper and that was missing on the finished pieces I was making.
Charcoal was the best fix. It added that sense of texture to the digital work that I do and it even mimicked the roughness of actual paper. I always loved the freeness and the sense of no-going-back that came with charcoal. I like the permanence of it. It’s like pen but always more forgiving because you can smudge and erase - just not that easily and not without consequence. It’s always been my favorite medium to draw with for a reason, so bringing that texture into my digital work has been incredibly fun for me. So I made my challenge into 100 days of charcoal. I set up the rules - no more than 45 minutes on any one drawing, everyday, only charcoal.
Obviously, my challenge came with pitfalls. The quarantine sapped my energy, as did full-time work obligations. I found myself struggling to keep up daily and fell behind.
Falling behind on a challenge is something anyone can relate to. So although I began to feel disappointed in myself initially, I quickly remembered that I am doing my best and that is always enough. I decided to change the rules. Instead of expecting myself to draw every day, which is always hard for a creative, I allowed myself to miss a day or two. Sometimes more. To make up for days lost, I worked on a drawing for 90 minutes the next time I picked up the tablet. I know rules are rules for a reason, but why beat myself up over rules I made? I can just change them to accommodate whatever is happening - and I think a quarantine and heavy work obligations (especially as a designer) is more than enough reason.
So I’m a bit “behind” on my challenge today but that’s not going to stop me from continuing. I will simply keep creating until I have 100 drawings done in charcoal, whether they adhere to the rules or not. And then I’ll keep going from there.
