It’s not impossible that you may be
thinking about embarking on our own 365 day one sketch a day challenge. If you
are, then here’s my advice and tips, based on my own.
· Set out your round rules before you
start. Obviously the big one is that you have to make at least one completed
sketch every consecutive day of the year. But then there are other things to be
considered. Does it have to be in a particular medium? Does it have to be from
life or can you use a photographic reference? For me I allowed as broad an
interpretation as possible, probably as a recognition that the challenge is
hard enough as it is without narrowing the terms of your challenge.
· Decide whether you are going to post
your pictures online. Obviously I’m going to say that I think this is a good
idea because I did it. But there may come times when you’ll need all the help
you can get with motivation to complete your challenge, and having the need to
post something online can help with this.
· Think seriously about what you’re
going to do on those days when you either can’t find the motivation, or the
time to make the kind of sketch you’d like to make. As the great John Lennon
said, “Life is what happens while you’re making other plans.” You might want to
make sure that you always carry an emergency pen/pencil and piece of paper with
you in case you’re stuck somewhere on business or whatever. Several of my
sketches were made with a work biro on whatever scrap of paper I could find. On
days such as this you have to get in the habit of actively looking for that ten
minute window when you can make a sketch.
You
might also want to think about what the simplest and quickest sketch you could
make if all else fails would be like. I always told myself that if I had to I
would allow myself to make a stick man sketch one day (only 1 day mind you).
Thankfully I never had to, but if it had made the difference between keeping up
the challenge, and failing on one day I would have done it.
One
thing I didn’t do which might actually be helpful to you is to compile some
prompts – maybe a couple of dozen, for you to use on days when inspiration
fails.
· Seriously consider joining a
sketching group on Facebook. Sketching Every Day, which I joined in late July,
provided me with a daily prompt (which I didn’t always follow, but was a great
source of inspiration for sketches), another forum for displaying the sketches,
and a source of encouragement and support.
· There’s nothing intrinsically wrong
about sticking with what you know and what you’re comfortable with. However you
might like to think about using your challenge as an opportunity to push
yourself out of your comfort zone, and try media that you’re not comfortable
with, or which are totally new to you. I love using an ink sketching pen, and I
think that it’s the medium I work best in. However I also produced sketches
during the challenge using graphite pencil, biro, direct watercolour, acrylic,
watercolour pencils and coloured pencils.
· Keep an eye out for opportunities to
tie your challenge into other challenges. The 30 day direct watercolour challenge
took care of the month of June, for example, and Inktober took care of all bar
a couple of days of October.
· A year is a daunting amount of time.
So although your overall goal is reach a year, do it by setting yourself medium
term, and even short term targets. Start off by seeing if you can manage 7
days, just one week. When you’ve completed that, then set a new target of a
fortnight. Then stretch it to a month. Once you’ve done a whole month, then you’re
already 1/12 of the way there. Once you get to 37 days you’ve completed more
than a tenth. Keep breaking it down into short achievable targets and you’ll
hopefully find this helps you stay focused.
· Don’t throw away the sketches you
make. You might not love all of them, but each one represents a step on your
journey and has its own value for that if for nothing else.
