Week 6 of my gatherfiltermake100 project: draw every day for 100 days.

Hello!

I kicked off a project to draw every day for 100 days on July 1st. You can read all about it here, and get my hot tips on how to manage a daily drawing challenge like this here (I’ve done three daily drawing challenges since 2020). You can catch up with previous weeks here.

It feels like I blinked and a week went past! How am I writing week 6 already!? I was deeply focused to try and finish the sketches for my new book last week, but despite that, I got my sketch done every day. I invoked the hack I wrote about last week - to get the sketch done as early in the day as possible - and it really helped! In fact, it was giving me a real dopamine hit every day when I remembered that I had already done my sketch!

There’s no other big revelations this week - just a sense of rhythm and keeping going; and this was all boosted by the actual official #threematerialsdrawingchallenge that was actually being held this week, (rather than me jumping the gun by a whole week!) The #3materialsdrawingchallenge is a drawing challenge hosted by Charlotte Durance Naomi Tipping and kathryn boyt (mainly) over in instagram. The challenge is to make a daily drawing using only three materials (eg. Three watercolour colours, not a whole palette). It’s usually hosted over the summer, and this year, it was over the first week of August. So I made every drawing this week using only three colours - and really enjoyed adding this challenge to the mix. Thank you to the hosts for the extra boost to my week!

Ok, on to the daily drawings. As per last week, I tried to take photos and post in my Notes when I remembered, so I’m posting the (slightly edited, to take out repeated tagging etc) words I accompanied each post with, where I remembered, and the rest is what I remember feeling as I write this post today (written in italics).

Let me know how your gatherfiltermake100 challenge is going! It’s not too late to join! The best time to join in was July 1st, the second best time is now!! And remember, I made a special chat thread for my subscribers joining in - do say hello over there too!

OK, on with the show!

Today I used blue, pink and yellow Posca pens. I was very tired after an intense day of drawing for my new book, but I decided I’d probably enjoy it once I got going, and went to a favourite spot by the river. The light was bad for photos, so I took a video instead - and you can see how idyllic it is!! (see video here).

(Note from today - I remember feeling beyond tired on this day, but once I was out, sitting in this idyllic spot, I enjoyed myself, of course! In retrospect - it’s a bit pastel, but all drawings are good drawings! Repeat to self!)

Drawing our cat with three materials! I was delighted when he settled in the old potato grow bag, so he would stay still, but as is always the way, I prefer the quick ones I did!

This was a case of wanting to get my drawing done at the beginning of the day, so I didn’t have a day like the day before (delightful as it was) where I had to get a drawing done when I was already exhausted! It turns out that the challenge of getting a drawing done at home, when I already feel like I’ve drawn our garden from every angle, meant that I started to get a little bit creative about what I was drawing - and in this case, I spotted our cat, Sonny, and decided to sketch him. It was fun to try and capture him as he ate his food, then sat around digesting afterwards!

I’ve been practicing getting the drawing or artwork done earlier in the day, so it doesn’t hang over me all day, and leave it until I am the most tired! So today after lunch, and Nick was doing the washing up, I grabbed my sketchbook!

I grabbed the sketchbook and pens first thing, and went out to the garden to find a perspective I’ve not done before. I love being in the garden, and it’s always tempting to pop-out there to draw, but I don’t want to sketch the same view every time, so it was fun to find a new perspective for today. I tucked myself under the honeysuckle down the side passage and drew the mini greenhouse I erected last weekend, which I’ve filled with cuttings and seedlings. I started with the greenhouse (sounds a bit grand for a small plastic frame thingy) using three fat markers/paint pens, which were quite hard to handle, and it was all a bit blobby, but by the end of the sketch I was getting the hang of them, and figuring out the mark-making, and I wished I could go back and draw all the pots and plants inside again, but ahh well - too late! I really enjoy this sort of problem solving in a piece, and it was fun to play with different marks, layering and colour combinations in this one!

My mum is visiting for the weekend, so, excited to have a new model, I did this as a sort of doodle as we chatted, and then added Nick as an after thought, and was slightly annoyed as I made him too big. But, ahh well, trying not to be a perfectionist!

I had to try and capture mum, in her Mexican top, brought back by her cousin 20 years ago, as she did the crossword with the lush garden behind her! I wanted to paint her this time, to try and move away from my obsession with the Posca pens! I was slightly frustrated not to be able to get much detail in with the big brushes, but actually, I quite like that it’s more impressionistic now I look back at it!

And that’s the end of another week!

Actually - there’s one unaccounted day of drawings, that as you’ll see, I’ve marked with day 34, but that didn’t match the rest, and in the end, I couldn’t figure out what day it was, so am posting here, as I enjoyed doing the little thumbnails. Can you make out some figures in there - and a foot!? I started by making some little sketches that I was frustrated with and kept starting again, but I actually quite like them now I look back - I’ll show them in my sketchbook look through, which I will try and get done this week. N.B. Why do I have such a fierce inner critic! I must remember about the magic drawer1! Anyway, I ended up making some thumbnails after The Happy Book Lady reminded me how fun they are to do in our of our Studio Club chats. Posting it here, so it’s not completely lost!

Onwards! If you’re joining in with your own 100 day challenge, let me know in the comments. Join me here by tagging me on any posts or Notes or over on Instagram using the hashtag #gatherfiltermake100. You can join anytime, just start with 1/100 and carry on from there!

If you enjoyed this, please do give it a like and share it with a friend, and help me appease the algorithm Gods!

Until next time!

Ella xx