What I learned from 100 Days of Bears

At the beginning of June I started a challenge called 100 Teddy Bears, in which I drew a teddy bear on my iPad in Procreate for 100 days in a row. The constraints of this challenge were subject matter and medium, and my goal was to begin finding my artistic style and voice by making art on a regular basis.

So… what did I learn in this 100 days?

Lesson 1: you are not going to like everything you make, and that’s okay.

I learned that it is okay to not love every piece of art you make. Honestly, it's probably healthy to make some bad art - it’s certainly necessary in order to learn and grow.  Some of the bears I made I really did not like when I was finished with them… Oddly enough, the ones I disliked the most were some of the best received pieces by my art group.

Lesson 2: You have to make bad art in order to make good art. (Note: good and bad are subjective terms here… but you get the point).

As mentioned above, you have to make some bad art in order to get to the good stuff. For me, this was difficult. I wanted each bear I drew to be really good.

Don’t misunderstand… I am very happy with the collection of bears I drew. I am very proud of them. But they’re not all my best work. They don’t all reflect my voice and style. I learned that we can’t get to our artistic style and voice without making a lot of art.

Being able to draw and make some crappy art is freeing… and it helps to get some of the clutter out of my head that made way for the good stuff. Any fears or hesitation I felt melted away once I started making art consistently… it’s like I broke the ice with myself and got the awkward bits out of the way.

Lesson 3: art is supposed to be fun.

I spent most of my 20s stressed out that I “can’t draw”. When I say I can’t draw, I mean that my drawing style is not proportional or lifelike. My hands don’t work that way…my brain doesn’t work that way. I thought that because I couldn’t draw something exactly the way it was, I wasn’t a good artist. And so I didn’t make art. And what a SHAME that is…. Because art is FUN. Putting color on paper is FUN. It’s therapeutic. Relaxing. Exciting. Sometimes I just found myself on my iPad drawing lines and dropping color to warm up and it was FUN. All this to say… stop being so hard on yourself!!! (I’m talking to myself when I say this and also you). Pick up some art supplies and go have fun. Scribble. Draw shapes. Color them in. Whatever you decide to do… have fun with it.

Lesson 4: I’m actually pretty good at art.

The more I look at all 100 bears together, the more I am impressed with what I was able to do when I gave myself the freedom to make art the way I wanted to.