In February, after listening to an episode of the "Made Remarkable" podcast from Kellee Wynne, I joined the 100-day project for the first time. In the episode, she talked about the parallelisms between the 100-day project and how to run a business, sharing interesting principles on how to run both. The one about being specific and having a focus caught my attention. Narrow down the topic of your challenge is key to its success. And I added to this the need to be simple. That's obvious, right? However, many people tend to overcomplicate this challenge. That scared me a little making me avoid joining it for so long. I saw all those complex projects people were doing and always thought mine had to be like that. However, until then I couldn't see the benefits of doing the challenge by practicing something simple.
Framing the challenge
So, while I was driving home and listening to Kellee something sparkled in my mind, and I decided to spend the next 100 days drawing flowers. Drawing is easy for me, and flowers are my passion. Later that day, I made a list with 100 flower names, trying to mix flowers I was already used to drawing with others I had never drawn. I grabbed an old notebook with some floral linework already done, and a pen and drew the first flower. That was it! My challenge had just started. I also created a Pinterest board to collect inspirational flower photos and illustrations throughout the challenge.
The idea was to go through the list of 100 flowers alphabetically, pick a corresponding reference image saved on my Pinterest board, and make a drawing using gel pen for each of them. I also decided to change the color of the pens every 10 days. It was as simple as that! Regarding drawing frequency, I didn’t want to be restrained by having to draw every day. I set the time frame of 100 days to complete the challenge, but let me be free to draw more than one flower per day or not draw any. Voilà! The outline of my 100-day project was created.
About sharing the progress, I decided to do it mainly through my newsletter, which I did, but not as much as I intended. I also shared some of my drawings on Instagram, but not daily, because I thought this was also one of the reasons why I avoided the challenge for so long. I also set out the #100dayofflorallinework so people could follow the progress of my drawings and invited people to tag along with me for the challenge. A few people did, which was a pleasant surprise!
Lessons learned
By the end of May, I had completed the challenge and was so happy I decided to go through with it. At the start, I was a bit afraid, especially with the length of the challenge, but with some planning and commitment, I pulled it off. The result is a collection of 100 flower designs distributed between two sketchbooks I will rely upon as a reference for future drawings. You can see all my 100 flower drawings in the video below and have access to some of them in my Free Resources Library.
By joining the challenge I have also learned some lessons which I will carry with me for next year's edition. They are not new, but as they say, there is nothing like experimenting by yourself. From what I have learned I can highlight these three:
Keep simple - If I hadn't framed my project to one subject (flowers) and one medium (gel pens) I would probably have been overwhelmed by the second week and have given it up.
Be flexible - You don't need to work on the challenge every single day and you don't need to stick with 100 days in a row. The important is to repeat the same exercise 100 times. If your challenge took more or less than 100 days, that's completely fine.
Don't overshare - If you want to gain visibility with your project, share it as much as you like. But for me, this was not a goal. I just wanted to challenge myself. So I shared only when I felt like it. This took away lots of pressure and made the challenge much more enjoyable.
How about you? What do you think about the 100-day project? Have you participated yet? If so, how many times? What kind of project have you developed? Which lessons you have learned? I would love for you to share your experience or intentions about the project in the comments.
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