This challenge started out well enough. I quite liked my first creation (though I would have liked to work on it for much longer). The days since, however, did not bear any interesting, let alone decent, artwork. Unsurprising, given that I was only putting aside precious few minutes for the challenge every day. It’s not that I wasn’t taking it seriously, but the reality is that the days of me spending several hours every day art-making are long past. Nowadays, I am consistently occupied with work and socializing.
As I was scrambling to produce another half-baked artwork for the challenge—for the third time in a row—it hit me that this was not right. Sure, I should not hold myself to some ridiculous standards for these little drawings and paintings, but I can’t just be putting out completely low-effort stuff for the sake of meeting some arbitrary quota I set myself. What’s the point of that. Like, if there is no value to the art I’m making—to anyone—why bother at all.
So, I’ve rethought this challenge. I will no longer try to finish all 31 planned works within the month. Instead, I’ll just go through them at my own pace, one at a time, until I have them all completed. This approach allows me to be more mindful of each work and feel satisfied with the results. After all, I want to look back on my art with some pride.
With that in mind, I’ve restarted the challenge from day two onward: this is BTTB20240311, inspired by a photo of a rose I took in 2022. I tried to think of interesting, quick ways to draw or paint a flower, but I couldn’t come up with anything that wouldn’t require significant time and effort, so this work ended up becoming much more of an exercise with my Pitt Artist Pens—they are really difficult to use… so unforgiving.
Anyway, after doing what I could with the pens, I added colored pencils and water colors to the mix to see how well all three mediums harmonized. The result is, well, some kind of interesting. I like the texture and messiness of it all. Still, there is a lot to be desired in my handling of the mediums and I suck tremendously at drawing flowers. I am definitely no art marker or pen person, that much is clear, but I can’t help using these pens. There is just something about them. It’s like a toxic relationship. Ironically, these pens are non-toxic. Hmm.