Navigating Resistance
Another week for the books! I kinda can’t believe that I’m 14 days into the 100 Day Project- sometimes I think thats how it will always feel. However, the resistance really tried me this week — procrastination, focusing on social media, etc. I overcame and I’m stoked with how some of the pieces came out.
I had few goals for this past week that I wanted to implement, including: starting my practice earlier in the day and using prep sketches before I started to paint. These prep sketches helped a lot with proportions and ideation before putting paint to the paper.
Most days I started earlier in the evening, so that I could get back into my normal early morning routines as well. But resistance manifested a few days as well, which had me starting a little later than I wanted.
Resistance happens
One of my favorite books of 2024 was “The War of Art” by Steven Pressfield. Its an amazing easy read that gets to the heart of resistance in all of its forms - procrastination, perfectionism and so much more. What matters more is that you continue to DO - even with resistance all around you.
“Are you paralyzed with fear? That’s a good sign. Fear is good. Like self-doubt, fear is an indicator. Fear tells us what we have to do. Remember one rule of thumb: the more scared we are of a work or calling, the more sure we can be that we have to do it.”
Steven Pressfield, The War of Art: Winning the Inner Creative Battle
Using the #5secondrule was a huge help for me this week - which was coined by Mel Robbins (who has an amazing book about this rule). Essentially, to use this tool - when you feel resistance to do something, count down from 5, 4, 3, 2, 1….. and do the thing.
This rule was particularly helpful on day 10 - when I wanted to paint the hand and butterfly. This was a scary subject for me because I had only drawn a hand a few times before and never with paint - watercolor or otherwise. But once I got going, I didn’t look back.
Focus on values not colors
I struggled through a few of the paintings due focusing on the colors instead of the values, especially Days 12 & 13. Working in watercolor, its really hard to bring back the lighter values after you’ve painted over it a few times… ask me how I know ;)
Having a plan, especially in relation to value is key to overcome this in future days or at least to help with this. I love and adore colors, but that love definitely tripped me up this week - especially on the Poppy prompt, as I tried to achieve that beautiful strong poppy red.
I got lost trying to get that color, but I didn’t have the right colors in my palette to achieve it - but instead I muddied all the values. Honestly, I wasn’t sure it cold be saved until I brought out my trusty white gel pen at the end.
In the end, the main thing I learned was that value is so much more important than color when trying to convey a subject. For this upcoming week, I want to use my prep sketches to focus on my values before I start to paint. Hopefully, this will allow me to fight my medium a little less throughout the actual painting process.
My favorite day thus far in the 100 day project was Day 14, working mainly in 2-3 colors and using layers to create a misty green wonderland. It was such an enjoyable process where I dropped fully into the flow.
Going into week three, I’m focusing on:
- Using prep sketches to help with values, along with ideation and proportions.
- Starting my creative process earlier in the evenings (especially on school nights).
- Challenging myself to at least one day where I set a timer for 30 minutes (max) to create.
If you’re interested in following along in more real time, check out my instagram where I’m posting reels daily about my process!
Comment below what has been your favorite day of #The100DayProject & why!
