I would be lying if I says I finished the challenge this year. As you can see from my previous posts I only made it through day 14.

Am I disappointed? Yes. I really wanted to complete it this year. However, life got busy as always so I will look at the positives of it instead of feeling dejected and beat myself up.

Things that went right

My hatching improved immensely. I’m more consistent with the line thickness, spacing, and direction. They aren’t all random. I’ve even done more curved hatching.

My composition is better. Everything wasn’t just thrown on the paper to get it done because it was late, and I was tired and I don’t wanna do that prompt Waaa!

Things that went wrong

Because I was more focused things took longer and I think I burned out. I did better, I think I did two more days than last year, but I burned out none the less.

Because I was focused on using hatching I didn’t use brush pens or do shading with washes. Actually, this was because the sketchbook I was using wasn’t a good choice for washes. I adapted but I wasn’t happy about it.

Lessons learned and take aways

My theme fell to the wayside pretty much before I started. I wanted to add animals and people to each piece. Next year I will not use the official prompt list. I’ll create something that aligns with my art goals. to avoid burn out or incorporate the prompts into one large piece.

I’ll ensure that I pick the correct paper for my style and if it isn’t working I won’t dig in and be stubborn “I paid good money for this durn it! I’ll make it work!”. I’ll set it aside until I find something to use it for.

So here is the piece I did on the 30th. My scanner doesn’t like picking out the details for some reason so I appologize for the phone camera image.

As you can see I’ve used hatching, stippling and brushwork and there are little background characters. I’m happy with it.

See you in the next post and enjoy your art, whatever it may be.

Clark