Four months and 16 cards into the year for my 52 Cards Project. Whoop whoop!

So far, I'm pleased with this little passion project. Surprisingly, it's taken 0 self discipline to complete it every week—unlike art challenges where I always seem to lose steam midway through and really have to push myself to complete.

I often wonder about that aspect of art challenges. On the one hand, art challenges are SO useful. I’ve participated in several years of Icad and Inktober and last fall I joined for a month of #coloricombo. I have also set up my own monthlong challenges. For example, one month I created portraits every day. One month I made collages out of one page of a magazine every day.

By committing to doing the art thing every day, you push yourself to think outside the box to create yet another thing and real growth happens. Not only do you get a ton of practice, but you come up with new ideas and methods that you just wouldn’t have without the push of the challenge.

But the push. Ugh. It really gets hard sometimes to make time and/or come up with an idea and then execute on it. Especially if the challenge is every day! I often think about doing the annual 100 Day challenge but geez, one. hundred. days? In a row? I just can’t gather up that much self discipline!

I’m happy to know that I’ve proven to myself that I can do it for 30 days—and I’m sure I will still step into art challenges again because they are so good for my art practice (probably not the 100 day project). But this last drawing I did for Inktober 2019 says it all:

On the other hand, this 52 Cards project—where I’ve set out to make one card a week for the year—doesn’t seem to feel that way to me at all. I think it’s because I chose a project that suits me well. I find it interesting to reflect on my experiences and emotions and I enjoy the process of "finding" visual metaphors. I love metaphors! And unlike daily challenges, I get a week of rest in between. And I really do love to draw and paint and conceptualize and then write about it. All the parts work. Yep, this project suits me all around.

Overall, I’m excited to make my card each week and that’s really all the momentum I need to keep going.

What about you? I’d love to know in the comments below how you incorporate challenges and projects into your art practice.