The 100 Drawing Challenge

100 Drawing Challenge

If you’ve ever wondered what to draw in your sketchbook the 100 drawing challenge might just be the answer to your question. Another question you might have is, “How do I learn how to draw”. And the answer is simple. The only way to get better at anything is through practice.

Therefore, if you want to learn how to draw, you need to practice drawing. And you need to do this as often as possible and on a consistent basis. Drawing for an hour or two once a month isn’t going to get you very far. Of course it’s better than nothing, but there’s a better way.

Since most of us can’t dedicate hours at a time learning how to draw, or simply improving our drawing skills, the better approach is to schedule shorter amounts of time each day. If you can schedule fifteen minutes everyday to work on your drawings you’ll see big improvements in your skill level.

This makes the 100 drawing challenge a perfect fit for working on your drawing skills.

Which leads to the next question. What should I draw? This is actually a more difficult question to answer because you need to feel motivated and inspired before you are going to want to practice. But other than your own motivation it doesn’t matter what you draw. Anything you practice drawing will improve your overall skills.

Here’s a list of drawing prompts if you’re really struggling to think of something to draw.

Eyes
Flowers
Pastries
Objects in your house
Dogs
Doodles
Mushrooms
Robot parts
Skulls
Aliens
Cupcakes
Trees
Pieces of fruit
Whimsical birds
Plants
Lips
Cups of coffee
Something from your imagination
Lamps
Whimsical houses
Cactus
Toys
Caricatures
Musical instruments
Owls
What’s outside your window
Cartoon animals
Masks
Pizza
Cowboy boots

What is the 100 Drawing Challenge?

Ok, so here’s how this works. You pick a theme, and then do 100 drawings with that theme. That’s easy enough, right? It really is just that easy, if you want it to be. How much effort and time you put into your drawings is totally up to you.

You might want to focus on a topic to draw, or maybe you want to focus on a technique or a medium you want to get better at. Years ago, I put together a lesson for my middle school students on graffiti lettering and quickly realized I didn’t know the first thing about using markers to add color to my artwork. So, I started practicing and learning about blending markers.

How to Start Your Challenge

There are a few decisions you need to make before you get started. These will be the “rules” of your challenge. You can make your rules whatever you want them to be. This is your challenge, and your goals will be different from everyone else. There are only a few things you need to decide before you get started.

What medium you want to use
Which drawing surface is right for the challenge
The theme you want to focus on

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Choosing a Medium

What medium you use is entirely up to you. Some suggestions are:

Ink pen (with no under-drawing)
Crayon
Outliner pen
Pencil
Brush pen
Fountain pen

Drawing Surfaces

Your drawings can be done in a sketchbook. Which is an excellent way to starting filling those things up. Or you can use regular drawing paper. Whatever you choose to do them on is your decision to make. I’m considering trying out a 100 drawing challenge on artist trading cards.

You can do your drawings as individual sketches or try to find a way to tie them all together into one big piece of work. Either way is fine. When I did the Eyes Sketchbook Exercise, I drew 2 sketchbook pages full of individual eyes.

Doing the Challenge

After you get your rules figured out, start doing your 100 drawings. You can do a specific number of drawings each day until you reach 100 drawings. Or you could try to do them all at once. It really just depends on how much free time you have throughout your day.

Either way is fine, but it should be enjoyable and relaxing. Don’t push yourself to the point where it isn’t fun anymore. It might be a good idea to set some sort of time limit though. The goal is to complete 100 drawings after all.

Benefits of the 100 Drawing Challenge

You might be asking what the point of this is. Well, the purpose of doing a 100 drawing challenge is to push yourself to get better at drawing and to improve your overall skill level. I guarantee that after drawing anything 100 times you’ll see some kind of improvement. Or using watercolors for 100 drawings, you will definitely see some improvements.

Repetition and consistency will help you improve your art and drawing skills more quickly. If you need some accountability to stay consistent with your drawings, think about starting your own blog to share your journey.

Improved Creativity

This type of drawing challenge, is an excellent way to improve your creativity as well. It’s difficult to be more creative if you never push yourself outside of your comfort zone. After doing several drawings that are similar, you’ll start to feel a shift in your creativity. Follow that shift and keep pushing yourself further.

Get our Free Creativity Guide for more information on exercises to increase your creativity.

We have many addition resources for improving your creativity. Check out our guide on how to be more creative with your art.

Develop Your Artistic Style

One of the most asked art related questions is “How do I develop an artistic style”. The more you draw, the more your artistic style will begin to develop. It just takes practice and repetition. The 100 drawing challenge will definitely help you develop your own style.

You also need a little bit of knowledge and understanding. But the knowledge and understanding can come from trial and error just as much as from actual education. Don’t be afraid to try new things and experiment with your art.

A great way to experiment with new ideas is by doing shorter challenges.

Don’t forget to grab your FREE Creativity Workbook