As you know (I can’t shut up about it) I completed 365 drawings in 2022 (technically, there was more, but I stopped counting at 365).
Anyways, it’s high time to show off my top 10 pieces, talk about how my art changed throughout the year, and drag some of the worse one’s kicking and screaming into the light.
Number 10 - Day 266. I’m pretty pleased with this one! It might even be a sticker in the future. I was doodling women in long dresses - as is custom - and wanted to fit a bunch of figures together - again, as is custom - and when adding details, decided to make them goddesses of animals, the heavens, and weather respectively. I was playing with the shale brush on procreate, and it felt good to play with softer lines!
Number 9 - Day 206. This was with the brush nikko rull, of a nice sunset picture of a canal near me. There’s definitely no fish in it, the characters are my artistic license.
Number 8 - Day 85. This was a quick illustration that popped into my head and flowed pretty easy. She rides around in meadows followed by a trail of fire, making flower crowns, putting them on her head, then replacing the ashes with another one.
Number 7 - Day 150 - This was a day of MerMay, one that I was really looking forward to drawing! Deep sea, ice water, glaciers, all of these inspire fear in me, so walking across creaking ice and seeing movement below is my worst nightmare, so I drew it.
Number 6 - Day 20 - This one was pretty early on, and came together because I was on a medieval kick and wanted to draw an arc of blood. I still really like this one!
Number 5 - Day 180 - This is my OC Ally, walking through an old mysterious mansion. I was on aa dark academia kick, and wanted to draw a creepy mansion :)
Number 4 - Day 168 This one was a crazy; it was a five minute scribble and I LOVE how it turned out! something about the strange color of the sky paired with the darkness of the superhero, the simple brush strokes - chef’s kiss (This brush was nikko rull)
Number 3 - Day 285 - This is fan art of the Locked tomb, and it was the first artwork of mine to go viral on tumblr (for me :P) This piece also re-kickstarted my love of this geometric style.
Number 2 - Day 64 oh man I was so excited for this one! I got really into the whole dot-printing thing in comics - I’d like to play with it more! Anyway, I don’t really care about Batman specifically, but the idea of his silhouette rising above Gotham, but he’s comprised of comic printing-dots.
Number 1 - Day 250. Of all the pieces I did in 2022, I think this one marries the most focus, clarity of purpose, and the skill level I was striving to achieve that year. It started out as a scribble of words “indian thumbalina, lotus flower??” and everything fell into place once I actually sat down to work on it. What I’m most proud of is the sense of hot sunlight and capturing that sense of wonder and joy as a mother discovers her tiny daughter in the lotus. This piece is up on my Etsy store for sale, that’s how proud I am of it:)
My conclusion after drawing a piece every day in 2022, was that drawing every image that popped into my brain instantly is a really good thing to do - it both puts the idea onto paper so you don’t forget it, and it clears space in your brain to generate new ideas. A majority of the ones above, the one’s that I love and think turned out well, started out with aa very clear image in my brain - So I guess my conclusion is doodle all the stuff out of your brain, and the best pieces (of mine) were the ones where I had a clear idea or image in my mind that I wanted to create.
Aaaaaand the bottom three, the one’s that I either rushed through, least fit my art style, or in the case of the very sad Murk (raccoon’s name) on the right, how my brain and my hand were just not talking that day. Just so you can see the stinkers as well as the pieces I am proud of :P
Have a wonderful day!
