Tiny acts of creativity

My 'how small can I possible make this?' 100 Day Project

Last month, on 22nd February, this year’s 100 Day Project kicked off.

I took part in this last year, creating 100 small paintings, collages or general creative interpretations of the theme ‘tea and coffee’. It was fun! 100 days is a Long Time to do something every day. Short enough that you don’t feel like you’ll be doing this for the rest of your life, but long enough that my initial ideas soon ran out, which is when I ended up doing some of my favourite pieces.

Some of my favourites from last year.

I also had a lot more time last year, as I was freelancing from home, with no commute, and a very flexible schedule. This year, I said to myself, I absolutely cannot take part in this challenge because I am working a fairly full-on job back in-house.

And yet...

At the very last minute (the evening of the 22nd), I decided to join in. Doing something creatively with my hands every day is fun for me, and this practice makes me make time for it. So I started.

My challenge to myself was: how small can I possibly make this to still make it fun, but also make sure I don’t feel like it’s yet another thing on my to-do list to get done. So here we are.

100 small circles for 100 days, each with a painting or doodle or something inside them. The circles are hand drawn, and there is not a perfect circle amongst them. It’s as small as I could make it, but I’m still getting the markers or paints or glue stick out every day, which is the point. It literally does not matter what these look like, the point is the do them anyway.

I have friends who say they can’t do art because they can’t draw, and that is not what art is about (to me). Yes, it’s amazing when someone can draw, or create something that makes you feel awe or inspiration or fury or some kind of big emotion. But also, it’s just about getting out the materials and giving it a go. I’m not an artist. I can still do art. Some is good, some is shit, but shit art is still art.

Give it a go!

If you want to give it a go (whether you take part in the project or not) (because it really doesn’t matter if you started on the 22nd of February, you can start whenever you want), here are some places to start:

1. Obviously the #The100DayProject Newsletter is your first port of call:

2. Then make sure you sign up for Adam Ming’s 10 Minute Artist

3. He also runs Art Gym with Katie Stack

4. And Beth Spencer runs the Introvert Drawing club, with tons of fun prompts:

So: are you taking part? Would you ever take part? Do you consider yourself an artist or feel like because you stopped art at age 14, you’re not allowed to do it anymore?

PS! The Joy of Beginning is always free but…

Thank you for reading! The Joy of Beginning will always be free to access, but I’ve decided to turn on payments just on the off-chance someone thinks ‘hey, I’d love to buy Katie a coffee every month and keep her art supplies topped up’.

There will be no additional content for paid subscribers, but you can upgrade to paid to support me and this hobby I enjoy so much. If you would like to support without a monthly / annual payment, you can also buy me a coffee :)