For those of you who missed the announcement, I have been challenging myself to draw and write every single day starting July 1st. It was very important to me to lean more into my creative side and to push myself even when I wasn’t feeling it all the time. Having now surpassed the half-way mark, I thought it was time to check in on the progress etc.
STATS
I have decided to keep writing my Football WIP! Coincidentally, July 1st was also the start of Camp NaNoWriMo, which meant that I had the perfect tool to track my writing with their website. Honestly, my motivation for drawing was much higher than for writing, because I stopped at a tough chapter back in May. But I still wrote every single day and made a whooping progress of 7,364 words in total so far!
As intended with this challenge, I have also managed to draw every single day. I completed 12 drawings (most of them full watercolor portraits) and sketched with pencil but not in way I would like to showcase the other days.
REALIZATIONS
There’s a couple things I learned from this so far and I really would like to share as well! It will also be fun to see if I still think the same once I have completed the 30 days.
- I can’t do everything all the time! This was probably the hardest one to come to terms with. If I draw every single day and if I write too, that amounts to the time a regular person would spend at a full time job. As much as I wanted to read all the books, write all the blog posts and watch all the movies and TV shows, it’s impossible to do it all. There’s not enough time and quite frankly also not brain power/creative energy to get to every single thing.
- While I am fairly self-motivated, external validation helps! I would definitely be lying if I said that validation from others doesn’t help. I really do appreciate every single like and comment, because it has helped me so much in keeping up with this challenge. Also, I went from 160 followers to 200+ in two weeks even though I have had my account for years, so this is just mind-boggling to me (click here if you want to follow my art insta too).
I will post my drawings at the end of this post, but you will see that they aremostlyexclusively about the cast from Stargirl. This is not just because I adore the show (which I do), but because the cast is incredibly friendly and appreciative of fan work. It’s so lovely to do this and get the recognition from the people you drew.
- Some things won’t ever look the way I want them to, and that’s okay! Having done this challenge, it has helped me so much with accepting that not everything I put out into the world needs to be perfect or flawless. Some things don’t work out the way I want them to, that’s fine and I just need to let it go. So often, people still appreciated my work, even when I didn’t love it. (I’m being serious here, I maybe really really like three of the drawings from the past two weeks …….)
- Writing is hard (duh!), but editing exists for a reason. I was always someone who was very focused on working on a single project, until things got hard and I dropped it. I also always wrote very linearly, but not this time. I was really super stuck, but I didn’t confine myself to just keep writing a chapter I disliked, but rather wrote other scenes I was looking forward to. The chapter I finally managed to conclude and still don’t like won’t deter me any more either, because that is what editing is for. Just because I don’t currently know how to fix things doesn’t mean that I won’t ever know.
DRAWINGS
As I’ve already mentioned, all of these drawings are from the show Stargirl or its cast. (I am pretty sure I will do a full currently watching post about the show once I am done with the entire season, because I really do love everything about it.) There is only one more drawing that I didn’t include, because it was a private one I drew for a family member and don’t think it should be online.
What do you think about my challenge and my progress? Do you like my art? I am happy to chat about it here!
Life and Other Disasters 
Congrats on doing well with Camp NaNo! I hope everything is going well with your WIP ❤ I’m also so happy to see you drawing so much! Your drawings look gorgeous and definitely make me curious about Stargirl 👀
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That was the goal!!! Get all the people to watch Stargirl muahahaha (no, but for real, it’s awesome. Not a single bad episode so far and renewed for another season already)
Thank you so much for the kind words 🙂 I set my NaNo goal to 30K, which I probably won’t reach, but I’ve gotten a good chunk of the story done.
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Wow!!! Your drawings are stunning!!!
My grandfather used to draw like that… he would draw pictures of famous people and then send them to them to sign and send back to him!! He had the Beetles and Elvis… when he died I got one… mine is Pope John Paul II (I didn’t get to choose which one I got lol, but I like it ❤️)
You do amazing!! Very impressive!!
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Awe, thanks! I’ve seen a couple people do that and I have a friend who brings her portraits along to cons to get them singed 🙂 I think I am just going to send mine off to the actors, but not necessarily to return them to me haha more like a gift to them if they want it. And if not, then I don’t have to find space for them at home. It’s getting a bit out of hand to be honest.
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You are one talented lady and I’m glad to see that those Stargirl cast members showing you appreciation for your work. That must indeed feel soooooo good! 😀 I do hope you’ll continue to keep up the amazing work you accomplish through this artistic outlet. It is amazing and inspiring to see you those things. Almost makes me want to try it too (won’t happen hahaha)! 😛
I totally agree with “can’t do everything” thoughts. Some people need to realize that sooner rather than later too. We just have to savour the things we do and not stress about what we don’t! 😀
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Thank you, Lashaan! ❤ I love it when they respond or share my stuff in their stories haha I got quite a couple fan accounts from the show following me now and I am just a bit scared that I’ll disappoint them the more I am moving away from drawing that show. I feel like I need to give the actors a break from me tagging them all the time or other people tagging them in the comments.
You should try it though! Believe me when I say that I could not always draw like this. It took me years to figure out what I liked and what worked for me and even then it was a constantly changing process.
It was hard to accept that I wouldn’t be able to do all the things. My blog has definitely suffered a bit this month, even though I had been so active ever since lockdown, but I just have to accept that. There’s only so many hours in the day and I do need to sleep eventually haha
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wow, your art is so amazing kat!! and i love that you got such positive reactions to and appreciation of your work from the cast, that’s so sweet 🥺 but congrats on all your progress for camp nano! i’m not officially participating, but i’m working a lot on my writing project and you’re definitely doing a lot better than me haha ❤
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thanks so much, may! i know you’re not supposed to do it just for actors/actresses to notice you, but I gotta say it’s a lot of fun that way haha
also thanks for the writing congrats! i started in my project with 20K+ words already, i just sort of had lost my rhythm entirely in june. I just hope i will actually finish this one rather than put it aside like so many other projects i did.
and always remember, no matter how much you write, it’s progress! Be proud of that! ❤
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Congrats on writing so much! 😀 Your art is so beautiful! ❤
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Thank youuu ❤
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[…] Half-Time Check-In: My 30 Day Art Challenge & Never Have I Ever – Writing Tag! (Kat @ lifeandotherdisasters) […]
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