Seven Day Sketchbook Challenge

It is free, it is fabulously fun, and it is filled with fur and feathers - just for you

Here ‘tis - info about the seven day challenge!

Welcome to the seven day sketchbook challenge!

We start on 21st November, finish on 27th November - but hopefully only finish for this particular challenge. My hope is that you will keep sketching for ever and ever after that :)

You only require the two must have tools, but more importantly, you need to bring some curiosity, compassion, courage, and the desire for connection. We will talk all about those more as we go.

Must have: 

A sketchbook or something to draw on.
A pencil. 

Optional:

An eraser
A clip or two if your book doesn’t lay flat.

Specific tools don’t matter, I will say it a million times over because it is truer than true, YOU, my friend are where the magic comes from - not a brand of pencil or paper.

A little more about supplies below, but before that let’s talk about the challenge itself.

Each morning (my time) from 21st to 27th November, I will send you an email with the reference photo for the day, PLUS a real time video of me sketching it. You can follow along with me exactly, or you can find your own reference to play with. The choice is always yours. 

My goal here is to get you sketching daily - what that looks like is the path you pick for your own adventure. 

I will try and keep the tutorials under 30 minutes - this practice has to be gentle and easily accessible in our everyday-life-chaos for it to be one that sticks, and I think we can all pretty much find 30 minutes in a day, even if it is in three lots of ten minutes. And honestly, if you can fit 15 minutes of sketching in a day, you will be so surprised what you can achieve as the days add up (and it becomes a highlight of your day to do it!).

As you have probably guessed, there is more to the challenge than just sketching, so I will also send you a post that has some of my thoughts about the mindsets and philosophies that help support this very rebellious act we call creating art.

I will also start a chat here on Substack where you can post photos (if you want to, absolutely no pressure) and have a conversation about each day. Part of the joy of creating is finding a supportive community to cheer each other on, and I am really hoping we can make that happen here in The Sketchbook Sanctuary.

Ok. Supplies.

Sketchbook/paper

I would recommend going small for this challenge, unless you have a lot of time to spend on it each day (and if you do - woo hoo! Go for it!). I am using a small Moleskine journal, 9 x 14cm  (3.5 x 5.5”) - they have very thin pages, so they won’t take a lot of layers or wet media, and they encourage me to be a little more loose and happy to show up even for just 15 minutes. If you don’t have a sketchbook yet, I will show you how to make a tiny one out of a piece of printer paper. It will have 8 pages, and be perfectly suitable for this very low pressure adventure.

Pencil

I am going to use graphite - it is so convenient, and you can get a lot of different values (light and dark) out of just this one tool. I am going to go for 2B, I feel like that is a nice balance between blackness (the B value, aka how dark it is) and hardness (the H value - pencils in this range are light because the graphite is very hard allowing you to make very precise lines). You can use a traditional pencil, or a mechanical pencil, it is totally up to you. If you want, you could use a couple, eg HB, and 4B, but honestly, one is perfect. You could use a single coloured pencil instead, if you want to interject a bit of colour!

Optional extras:

An eraser - I will have a kneadable eraser on hand, but I will try not to use it actually - incorporating any lines I didn’t put where I wanted them to go is part of the fun. But if you are not at that level of bravery yet, a little erasing is perfectly fine too.

Clips to hold the page flat - not always necessary, probably not at all necessary in the size sketchbook I am using, but they are helpful to have on hand.

That’s it!

Easy, right?

And that’s the thing - the sketching part, even if it is hard, it is the easiest bit. The showing up every day for your creativity is the hardest part. If you can manage to stick to this challenge for the full seven days, even if for only 15 minutes a day, you are well on your way to building a beautiful , supportive, entirely nourishing habit.

See you soon!

Oh, and here is how to make a wee sketchbook with some printer paper and some folding. Sketchbooks are everywhere if you know how to look for them!