Did you see the online drawing challenge this week? #Oneweek100people2017. I thought it would be kind of fun so I jumped right into the fray on Monday, drawing people every chance I had. In order to make the daily quota of 20 people, each portrait needed to be simple and quick. The first day I was pleased to draw most of my subjects from life.
The second day, working around my teaching schedule I decided to work from photographs. This day found me spending too much time on details.
By Wednesday it was time to ramp it up so I drew groups of people. But by the end of the day I was only halfway to the goal.
I was starting to feel a little stressed because I had quite a few other commitments in the next few days. I paused to consider why I was doing this. Liz Steel and Marc Taro Holmes initiated #OneWeek100People to encourage sketchers to improve their people drawing skills, certainly a worthy goal. I loved seeing each day’s results on Facebook and Instagram. But I was scribbling faces and bodies just to reach the count with no thought to improve my skills. I made the decision to stop at 52. This was a big deal because I really like to see things through. But I made the right decision for me. I will continue to draw portraits slowly, hone my skills and progress at my own pace.
Be sure to look up the drawings for this great challenge. There is a fantastic array of work. I now recognize I was excited to be a part of this global event. The work from sketchers around the globe never fails to inspire me. Congratulations to all who have joined in and posted their work!
Love to Draw 
Congrats for taking part! I did too, but like you, I added my own personal goal, which is the only way to make it meaningful (beyond being part of a worldwide initiative, which is pretty cool). My goal was to make as few marks as possible and still evoke an individual – through expression, gesture or posture – and not a generic symbol. I got 104 for the week!
– Tina
Thanks, Tina. Congrats on your 104! That’s amazing. Your drawings are wonderful. I’d say you succeeded very well with your goal. What a fun week all around.
Wise decision! The various drawing challenges are great, but it’s always good to keep the over-arching goal in view — to make the kinds of works that you want — and those outcomes will be different for different artists. Your use of the challenge so far did clarify some issues for you evidently as you now have a better sense of how much attention you put into individual pictures. That’s a win!
Lovely comment. Thank you!