100 Days of Portrait Play: Goals and Set Up

on

The 2026 100 Day Project starts on February 22nd. This annual, worldwide challenge invites folks to do something creative, every day for 100 days. This year will be my 7th time participating in the "official" 100 Day Project and my 9th 100 Day Project involving dice rolling.

While I always have some anxiety and fear leading up to the start of a new 100 day project, I've learned to trust myself in figuring it out as I go. However, this year's focus is especially intimidating for me. It is something I've considered in recent years but kept chickening out at the last minute and choosing a different project. 

This year, I will be embarking on 100 Days of Portrait Play! Below is my game plan which was developed with great intent to progress from a fairly simple starting point and adding increased difficulty with each quarter to build up a library of facial elements, putting them together, exploring emotion/expression, and then putting it all together to turn photos into portraits. Oh and to help me track my progress, I will be doing 5 self portraits starting with Day 1 and then repeated on Day 25, 50, 75, and 100. 

While much of my daily play will focus on sketching, I've included the possibility for creating portraits using ink, watercolor, block printing, and collage.

As I was busy refining my game plan, I assembled a 100 Day Project kit which currently fits into this large zip pouch measuring 10" x 15" which contains a starting set of supplies and resources making it compact, convenient, and portable, with a bit of extra room to add additional materials as needed.


Let's take a peek at what I've included in my 100 Day project kit...

Drawing/Sketching supplies:

  • a 5.5" x 8.5" sketch pad with 100 pages!
  • pencil with eraser
  • black pens with various tip sizes
  • watercolor pencils in hair & skin tones
  • semi-clear plastic to trace elements and faces using a fine-tip dry erase marker

Reference Materials:

  • Over the past few weeks, I've gathered a fun mix of faces from my collection of ArtFoamies stamps, rubber stamps, magazine clippings, and more to study and draw inspiration especially as I develop a library of facial features during the first quarter.

  • Books on Faces found in my personal library including:
    • Ed Emberley's "Drawing Book of Faces" (as a kid I loved his drawing books)
    • Amarilys Henderson's "Drawing & Painting Expressive Little Faces" (at one point I had two copies of this book which should be an indication of how much I've been wanting to explore faces in my artwork!)
    • Cara Bean's "20 Ways to Draw a Mustache" (I have several of these 20 Ways to Draw books for use with block printing as they are a treasure trove of designs!)

I got a jumpstart by checking out several books from my local public library including the ones shown below. 

One last bit of preparation was to gather digital resources which currently include:

  • An inventory of previously purchased online classes/lessons that focus on faces/people
  • Pinning faces to a Pinterest board
  • Visiting websites/Instagram accounts of artists that create stylized portraits that I admire
  • And a friend recently shared two different free live portrait sketching sessions via Zoom that intrigue yet scare me too!!
Now I just need to wait for February 22nd to arrive to sketch my first self-portrait! 
As with previous projects, I will share my progress via Instagram and Facebook posts, and perhaps a few blog post updates as well! Wish me luck!!





Comments

Post a Comment

I am delighted you took the time and thought to leave me a comment. It may take a day or two for your comment to appear as I moderate them prior to posting to filter out spam and inappropriate content. Cheers!