One Week 100 People

This post is from the 2017 go at this challenge.

A few weeks ago, I signed myself up for the “One Week 100 People” Drawing Challenge, which I learned about from Marc Holmes, a local Urban Sketcher (though, admittedly, I am virtually never around for the official meet-ups and do all my urban sketching alone). The challenge was what it sounds like: over the course of one week, sketch 100 people. At first, I was arrogant. “Yeah, that’s easy,” I thought. Quickly, I realized it wasn’t so easy. I was thinking back to when I was a teenager, when I had more energy and zero responsibilities past doing my homework after 3 pm and consequently enough of both to draw for hours every night. Like I said in a previous post, I used to fill thick sketchbooks. There’s reason why not everyone is an artist, and why some artist fail to produce work, and that’s because you got to prioritize it in your time in life for it to happen once you’re an adult.

Anyway, be it that there is still snow falling on April 1st (what a joke, very funny Nature), it was wet, snowy, and bitterly cold outdoors. I really wanted to draw only real-life people in action, but as you’ll see below, some are from videos and photos. Drawing from video is actually a neat experience. You can pause video and get an action you’ll otherwise never witness in real life, which expands the possibility of poses.

What I took away from this challenge is that drawing is just like any other habit. A couple years ago, I was part of a French book club in aim to learn French faster (FYI, it worked), so I was reading for 15 minutes to an hour a day to try keep up with the progress everyone was making. This really feels no different. It becomes easier, it becomes more natural, and it becomes something you rather be doing than browsing the web or whatever other way you procrastinate. If only I had infinite subjects and ideas to draw.

Also, I found the more I drew, the more I started sketching images I was happy with. I really love the way line and colour come together with form in some of the last sketches of the yoga instructor and hip-hop dancers; meanwhile, I’m not impressed with my stiff doodles from TV shows. You can read more about each set of drawings in the captions for them. Some of these may turn into full size paintings…who knows!

If you’re interested in seeing more work by other artists who joined the challenge, look for #OneWeek100People2017 on social media.