I may have taken on too much this year in the way of daily challenges (I hope not!), I have started with two projects which are going to be daily for the whole year.  Look how new and skinny these books look now, I can’t wait to show you a picture of them bulging and messy with paint and pen!

I am going to be making a daily doodle, pattern, drawing, collage, whatever comes into my head in my daily Moleskine planner/sketchbook.  This is my ‘quick’ daily art.  The pages are quite thin, so I will not be adding too much media but if I decide to go for it, I can just stick some collage onto the following page.  This diary is aiming to be a freeform art project, my playtime if you will. The page may be relevant to the day or not, I may even just write all over some days, let’s see!

The second daily 365 challenge is to make a painting or drawing a day.  This book is bigger and with nice thick paper.  I am using a Strathmore Mixed Media hard cover sketchbook so that I can use water colours, gouache, inks and all the wet media and the pages will hold up.

My aim for this book is to make it full of improvement and ideas, painted objects and figures and faces along with patterns and colour.  This is the book I already hesitate to go to because I am intimidated by the idea of spending more time on a page a day.  This in itself is one of the reasons I am doing this and trying to fill this book and more to make the end of the year.  For some reason I am convinced that if I commit more time to a painting or drawing there is more opportunity to mess it up.  This is going to be something I overcome as I commit to these pages.

This is my thoughtful book, my take your time book, my ‘you can do it’ book.

So far I have used mainly watercolours and I will move onto other things as I go through the months.  I had no intention of writing on these pages but I have added some, so I will let it go where the mood takes me.

Of course I am sure that other challenges will come and go through the year and I will either incorporate them into these books or I will add them into my art challenge collection as and when they appear.

For now I am at day 4 and still going!

Are you doing a challenge?  Monthly?  Daily? Weekly?  I find they are the best way to keep at a skill and improving it. Good luck!

Happy Wednesday x