The One-Hundred Cat Challenge

Now, just random drawing likely won't get you much better. There's drawing and then there's practice. To give myself a focus, I did the One-Hundred Challenge, where you draw one particular thing 100 times. I chose cats because I really, really like cats. If I spend 5min on each sketch, I should be able to knock all 100 out in just over a month.

Well, it's been just over a month, and the results are in! The differences from my first sketches compared to my latter ones are night and day. Here, take a look:

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Yes, these are supposed to be cats.

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This was halfway through the challenge. Look at the difference. The one cat face I, clearly, used more than 5min, as I wanted it to be special. In the 15min or so I took, I created one of the best cats I've ever drawn. Ever.

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My last day was slightly anti-climatic, as I didn't have the time to fully invest like I wanted for the occassion. Plus, to be honest, I had a bad day... but my bad days are now 10x better than my old good days! That's the definition of progress!

Besides the nice jump in quality, this challenge taught me how to draw quickly, something I've always resisted. It taught me to look for shadows and highlights, to find from where the light's coming. It taught me focus and persistence, as some days I really didn't feel like practising ... but I did. And it taught me the value of a goal. As I got closer and closer to reaching 100, I got more and more excited. I started drawing more, longer, with each completed cat another exciting step further.

After doing so many short, quick sketches, I'm going to try a longer study now, and when that's done start the Challenge over again. If you're interested in doing a similar challenge, which I highly recommend, then I suggest Pixelovely's site: artists.pixelovely.com/ It has loads of stock images, and it can automatically switch to a new image after a set amount of time, perfect for this type of art practice.

I didn't draw much last year, but 2014 is going to be different. This is just the first step! Huzzah!