My Rookie Year in the 3 Materials Drawing Challenge
The best viewing experience would probably be on something larger than your phone for this one (my bad)
Back in June, I attended this Introvert Drawing Club workshop where I learned of the “3 Materials Drawing Challenge.” One of the featured workshop artists, illustrator Naomi Tipping, demonstrated the 3 materials limitation live in her sketchbook. My brain skipped. I hated everything I drew, but it was so exciting to see Naomi’s creative use of only 3 materials!
She mentioned that she’d be hosting the challenge again soon on Instagram, along with artists Charlotte Durance and Kathryn Boyt.
The premise is pretty simple: Spend no more than 30 minutes making a drawing from life, using only 3 materials, for 50 days.
I’ve been trying to get back into a sketchbook habit over the past year, which has been really productive and enjoyable. Instead of scrolling my phone or playing Candy Crush with my morning coffee, I’ve been drawing in my sketchbook instead. But I have been using digital tools for work for so long (iPad/Procreate, laptop/Adobe software) that I noticed I don’t have the same free approach in my sketchbook that I used to have, before a design career took the front seat. Joining along in this challenge seemed like a good way to push my sketchbook practice further and loosen up.
The challenge began on July 8 and I immediately bent the rules by not drawing from life. I drew my garden, but the version in my head, always being trolled by neighborhood rabbit gangs.
I continued to forget about the life rule and drew my nieces from photos, some surfing bears because I felt like it, and some general views I often see from my office/studio window.
All that time, I was dipping my toes into the challenge by using different colors of the same product – a marker pen set a friend of mine got me for Christmas from Target. I do love those pens, but I was jealous of the beautiful works of art people were creating and posting to Instagram in the challenge hashtag.
I began clicking through and noting some techniques and materials that I wanted to try. I also happened upon this post by Beth Spencer of Introvert Drawing Club, which had some helpful tips and resources for limiting your palette, which I found really useful.
On day 5, I forced myself to actually draw from life, using some of the new materials and techniques I’d gathered.
It was…SO. MUCH. FUN! I wish I could explain it better than simply sounding like someone who’s had too much sugar.
At first I liked the idea of having 50 new drawings at the end of this thing. But once I started purposefully exploring different materials, views from life, color, layout, etc…I felt like I did a decade ago! Having fun making art!
So many new materials discovered: there have been fancy crayons and highlighters, new types of brush markers, wax resist, paint pens, water pens…seriously endless.
And drawing from life has proved to be such a joy, rather than the task I initially thought it would be. I’ve used the challenge as a reason to go explore nearby parks and lakes.
Throughout all of the drawing sessions, I’ve never really bothered to note the time or given much thought to the 30 minute rule. Since I have to closely track my time for work, I just can’t do it for play. But I noticed I tend to dabble with a few drawings at once.
I think my favorite new materials so far would be these Stabilo Boss highlighters and Kingart Mixed Media Gel Sticks (basically like big silky crayons). I also picked up a few new Talens sketchbooks in different sizes, but I’m particularly loving the 4.7” square size for it’s portability and that it feels much less daunting when faced with a blank page.
I don’t know how many days the challenge has been on for (when was July 8? Surely it was months ago). I definitely haven’t done a drawing for every single day. And I don’t post most of my challenge drawings to Instagram, but I am so grateful for all of the wonderful artists who have, because I have learned so much from them!
That’s it for this round up. I’m off to see family next week, along with beaches, countryside, and interstates, so I expect I’ll have a good chunk of sketchbook pages to show at the end of August. (Just 3 materials to capture a Jersey beach? Can it be done?)
Til next week <3