What I learnt from doing the 100 days project

My 100 day project theme was 'The Botanical Series'. By signing up I committed to draw a plant a day from my garden and surrounding neighbourhood for 100 consecutive days. 

I knew it wasn't going to be easy, not only because making the time to draw daily isn't always practical and I didn't think I had access to so many plants. The later start in August. this round, meant we were heading into spring. Just when I thought what was I going to draw, the next day another plant would start flowering and there I'd have a botanical muse. I did draw some foliage-only plants, a few bought flowers and a pomegranate fruit!

So here's what I learned.

Practice does help you improve - drawing the plant form became easier and I became braver and faster at drawing

Plants are wonderfully inspiring for providing variety and subject matter

Understanding the anatomy of a plant helps to get a sense of the spatial form and how the parts are connected

Being part of a signed up project gave me permission to draw every day and my family and friends supported it 

Focusing on one thing everyday was a mindful activity that helped me forget my daily worries and stresses and wrapped me in a cloak of calm and stillness

Posting my photos to Instagram made me accountable and gave me motivation to meet my commitment

Completing all 100 days of the project gave me a great sense of achievement. Now if only I could do the same with giving up sugar!

The Instagram community was ever encouraging and supportive and for which I am grateful. As a token of thanks, I created a calendar as a giveaway that @coffeepaperyarn won in the lucky draw (please visit her feed!). 

If interested, all my pics are tagged to the hashtag #ab_100days on Instagram.

With the countdown to Christmas, its easy to think of the next creative project. What's yours?

- Claudia x