The First 50 Days and Counting
One hundred days seems like a long time
I must confess that at the beginning, the idea of working on the same project day after day, for 100 days sounded a bit intimidating, perhaps even a bit boring. I’m happy to report that I've passed the halfway mark of my 100 day sketchbook project with new enthusiasm for the process.
The first half of the project, which was outlined in a previous blog post, was an intuitive endeavor. Making quick, 15 minute sketches in my sketchbook during those first 50 didn’t leave much time for thinking or judging the work. I simply let my hands lead the way to cover the page.
But now it’s time to move to the second phase of this project. It’s time to assess the sketches and to rework each one with fresh eyes and with new intentions. It’s time to really look at what’s there to decide what resonates with me, what to keep and what to discard.
Day 6 of my 100 Day Sketchbook Project.
50 days later: Day 56.
Looking back
The first half of this project was all about experimenting with materials that were readily on hand. I was spontaneous and (mostly) not critical of the daily efforts. Not surprisingly I began the project hesitantly but by the second week the work began to shift. As the days progressed, I experimented more, and became looser with the materials and more comfortable with my process and the time constraint.
A turning point and a revelation
Day 17 was the first day that painted palette paper was introduced as a collage elements. These papers are a byproduct of the painting process where colours are mixed on a piece of tracing paper used as a palette.
Some might consider them garbage but they were really a gold mine of colour for me.
Once dry, they allowed me to add colour quickly to a sketchbook page, by cutting and collaging sections of the painted paper intuitively and without fussing. The marks were already there made days or weeks before in a natural way without thinking about the outcome.
These collage papers sported a treasure trove of colour: Thick and thin, saturated and desaturated, light and dark, opaque and transparent, solid and broken...perfect for experimentation. And also the scale was helpful...the sketches are small about 7” x 6” and the swirls and dashes of paint on the palette paper are large in comparison.
These papers added excitement and a less self conscious element to the sketches.
Anticipation
As Day 50 approached anticipation for the next 50 days of the project began to build (more about that later) and I realized that having more marks and paint and collage elements on a page to work with would serve me well in the second phase of the project.
Having an abundance of paint marks or collage materials makes understanding the passages that I like and those that I don’t like easier to see. I knew this all along but sometimes you just don’t really know something until you are in it. It’s for this reason that the last sketches are the most exciting to me: There is lots of potential in them in a way that is missing in the efforts of the early days.
Day 51 and beyond
In the past two weeks, as of Day 51, I have switched gears in the project and have begun the process of looking at the sketches with fresh eyes and deciding what resonates with me and what doesn't: What will stay and which parts I can let go.
It’s all about discerning what is a “yes” for me and what is a “no”.
Limiting myself to 15 minutes per sketch per day was a great teacher and aided the process but this time limit no longer serves me going forward. In this next phase, I now allow myself the luxury of as much time as needed to rework the sketches. The time constraint that was so helpful in the beginning served its purpose and I’m happy to move beyond that now.
This project has always been a way to inform my practice and grow as an artist and so far the results have been exciting.
Who knows what the efforts of the next few weeks will bring or where these sketches will settle in the second half of the journey? But that’s the exciting part of it, the not knowing and trying anyways. I’m looking forward to what my hands will show me next.
If you would like to follow along, find me on Instagram @ann.e.roth, or follow #the100dayprojectannrothart.
Edit: You’ll find my reflections on my completed #100dayproject in this entry.
Add some colour to your inbox.The Studio Journal
A THOUGHTFULLY CRAFTED COLLECTION of STUDIO NEWS, CREATIVE INSIGHTS and INTERESTING TIDBITS JUST for FUN!