End Of The Kitchen Drawing Challenge

A little over 30 days ago, I created my own drawing challenge. This helped me solve two problems. The first one was time. Life has been busy, which sometimes made it hard to find the time to make art. The second problem was that I wanted to sketch, but would get reluctant or shy about it. As a result, I challenged myself to draw / sketch something in my kitchen every day for 30 days. With a few exceptions, it turned out to be mostly consecutive days.  It started with the stand mixer and it ends with the stand mixer.

Day 30 - stand mixer

Over these 30 kitchen drawings, I learned to see better. I'm starting to notice how parts of things relate to other parts of things in a way that I never did before. These drawings were done without a viewfinder, so it was the first time I've ever had to figure out what dimensions or proportions matter. One day, I remember drawing one of my Bee House teapots several times. While focusing on some of the important dimensions, I missed the importance of addressing the overall height versus the width. Although something was clearly off,  it took a bit for me to see that.

I worked on trying to make marks and lines in different ways with my pen. I tried trying organic objects like broccoli versus other objects with defined shapes. I also grew my appreciation of how beautiful a simple line can be. Several times (mostly with cats) I'd start a drawing with a really good strong, initial line and it almost felt like I could stop at that moment. It felt like I had "said" everything that I had to "say" about that object with one simple line. I always continued on. Sometimes, that was good. Sometimes, it would have been better to leave the one line alone.

I'm not sure what's next. I don't think that I want to "declare" another 30 day drawing challenge. Instead, I think I'll continue to try and sketch something every day and do a periodic summary blog post. If I get off track, I'll go back to a 30 day commitment to keep the habit going. That's been the other benefit. If I keep up the habit, my drawing skills will improve. It might not happen every day and it might not happen with every drawing, but it will happen overall. Also, it makes me less reluctant to sketch, when a good opportunity presents itself.

At the same time, I have to get back to painting. I miss it and I've gotten rusty. I finally did some painting today and will try and post about it tomorrow.