Yesterday I completed an art challenge that was passed along to me six days ago by a very talented colleague and friend of mine, Tim Mrozek, and I wanted to summarize and recap the experience from start to finish.
The concept was to either create or share three pieces of original artwork for five consecutive days to showcase your talents while also tagging a new artist every day in order to pass along the torch and generate virality. People chose a variety of of tools to craft their art work. Some people sat down with a pencil and paper while others digitally drew texture maps for character models in photoshop. Some even chose to throw in some photography samples, as well. There was no single way to approach and complete the challenge which was refreshing. Below is a summary of the five days:
Day 1: I decided to go the fine arts route for my first day and did a few quick sketches of some of my favorite (sweet) places in NYC. The following image is a picture I took of those sketches that highlight City Bakery's famed hot chocolate, Dough's delectably huge and delicious donuts, and Morgenstern's legit finest and tastiest ice cream in the world. As you can see I have a major sweet tooth. I was also certainly feeling the recent impacts of giving up chocolate for lent a few days prior, thus, these sketches filled that void temporarily.
Day 2: The second day was probably my favorite because it was also a special day, Paul's birthday, and I wanted to do something that related to the two of us. Two years ago we took a trip out to San Francisco to see the sites and meet up with close friends, and there's no question that we took many pictures while we were there, too. I found a picture from that trip and decided to draw it in Photoshop to practice lighting. In my personal opinion I think the lighting on me may be slightly off, but his portrait came out perfect! As the saying goes, "practice makes perfect," and I'm intrigued by this drawing to practice this technique again very soon. Overall, I was very happy with the outcome, and especially because I had only spent about an hour or two drawing it.
Day 3: For the third day of the art challenge, I decided to step away from both my physical and digital canvases and approach my work from a different perspective. I decided to share some photos I had taken a few weeks earlier during a Valentine's Day date to the Top of the Rock and the Lego store ...and dinner of course! (those photos didn't come out as good as these did unfortunately) I took these photos with my Nikon D7100 and a 24mm lens. Out of a pile of about twenty photos, I ultimately chose these three because the framing was distinctly different in each of them.
Day 4: Inspiration for the next set of drawings/designs came from a conversation I had had with a coworker about breaking my arm in college ...and my very short lived breakdancing career, too. That's a tale I'll save for another day, but as a result of our conversation and reminiscing some, I created the following pieces in Photoshop. I refer to them as a series of 'freezes' since each drawing showcases a different breakdancing freeze while maintaining the same stylization throughout and also using a different color palette to make each one unique. Below was the outcome.
Day 5: The last day was another one of my favorite days because this time I turned to some of my favorite third party motion graphics and effects plug-in's that are part of the Rowbyte and Red Giant families. I also decided to focus on abstract forms. The first of the three abstract pieces, created with Plexus, was meant to display the beauty of geometric shapes and forms (i.e. lines, vertices and polygons). The second abstract piece, created with Particular, was an exercise in displacing particles while also establishing an appropriate depth of field with a 3D camera to achieve a subtle bokeh effect. The third abstract piece, created with Mir, was meant to focus on the interaction of light and different materials. The results were very different from one another and I was really happy with how they all turned out in the end.
Not to sound redundant but there is a reason why a challenge is well, challenging, because it allows you to step out of your comfort zone and practice talents and skill sets that you don't use every day. Most importantly though it forces you to learn. Whether it is to learn something entirely new, to continue practicing something or simply problem solve, the desire to learn is the single most important thing that encourages us to outperform ourselves each and every day. One should never go a day without learning something new no matter how big or small a challenge or lesson may be.
And because you are reading this, I now challenge you, not to a five day art challenge, but rather to a daily challenge in hopes that you find something new and exciting to practice or keep up with to empower yourself and the people who surround you.
Cheers!
