Art Every Day Challenge for 2022

I have been making art every day in 2022.  Some has been physical art, and some has been digital. Some days I write, and some days I dislike my final product.  But every day I have made some art. And every day I have shared some art on social media.  

Two months in, and I have learned so much.  

One of the first things I learned was “paint or draw the same thing every day”.  I loosely follow this rule with my digital art.  Nearly everything I do has a sky, a mountain or a moon in it.  Why?  Because when I sit down to do art I need to DO art, not wait for some inspiration or muse to tell me what to make.  So for me, if I don’t have a compelling idea to draw/paint when I sit down, I start with a mountain or a moon and make something. Sometimes it takes me a while to pick a color palette, but who doesn’t get lost in Pinterest every now and again? 

Second, sometimes it is fun to sit down and TRY to make a horrible piece of art.  There can be so much internal pressure to make a really great and emotional piece every time I sit down.  The pressure stifles my creativity, so I started reversing it and trying to really make my art look like total crap.  One of the pieces that my friends on social media loved the most was a digital painting that I thought was totally gross up until the last 5 minutes of making it.  

Third, not every piece is going to be good and it is ok to share them anyway.  It isn’t ruining my image and it isn’t making people think less of me.  I have a discipline of making and posting a piece of art every day.  People admire the discipline.  If they see a bad piece of art and judge me for it, then they aren’t my people that are going to love me and my art anyway. 

Even though it started out painfully hard, I have already experienced the benefit of daily practice.  My digital art is GOOD now!! People look at my pieces and they admire it.  I have sold some prints and I am a working artist now. 

I have been doing digital art for years. I was not *good* even a couple years ago.  A YouTube tutorial used to take me about 4-6X the time of the video and it never came out the way I wanted it to.  Now I can do a tutorial and fairly rapidly end up with a product I am super proud of.  

When you start a new skill or discipline, it is hard. The end product usually starts out sucky.  It is difficult to make yourself go back to a task where you sucked and continue to try and get better.  Most adults I have met don’t love to do new things that they aren’t already good at.  

Well, I started out this year long challenge with some pencil drawings, ink, and watercolor.  Then I moved onto some writing and digital art.  At this stage in the challenge, I am in love with digital art and I have been doing tutorials every week and trying out new skills and different styles.  I have improved more than I could have imagined at this, and I am looking forward to seeing how advanced I can get by the end of the year. 

And my digital/visual art inspired this site, and my blogging.  I am actually now creating much more than a single piece of art every day.  It feels good to lean into this creativity.  

Let me know if you are doing the #ArtEveryDayChallenge too.  I would love to follow more daily artists! 

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