#The100 Day Project: Catching up with Elizabeth Hawks
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How Different Artists Can Participate in the 100 Day Project The 100 Day Project is a celebration of a process that encourages everyone to participate in 100 days of making. It's beautiful in its simplicity and flexibility allowing creators of all disciplines to participate. It produces incredible results, sometimes even life-changing.
About the 100 Day Project The concept is simple: you commit to doing something consistently for 100 days straight while sharing it daily on Instagram with at least 2 hashtags: #the100DayProject and one unique one you create for yourself (like #EBHawks100MuseumWorthyArtPieces or something). This year the community project starts on April 2nd, 2019. Lindsay Jean Thomson is hosting. Go to the100DayProject website to sign up for the official newsletter or listen to the podcast. Although the official start day is April 2, anyone can join at any time
Set Yourself Up for Success You can start this project at any time. Preparation is not a requirement. In fact, no matter what day you're reading this, you can start right now if you want. Although you can begin spontaneously, some preparation might help you see your project through to the end. For some more tips on preparation and a free tracker PDF download, visit http://artfulpursuits.com/how-to-have-a-successful-100-day-project/
Brainstorm Ideas When deciding what to do, make it simple and make it something you feel passionate about. You are committing to doing this for over 3 months. It's unlikely that you will have extensive time every day of your life for the next 3 months to do a complex project. It's also unlikely that you will complete the 100 days if you feel "meh" about it. To borrow from Marie Kondo, what will spark your joy? That's what you want for your project! To be clear, you don't have to be a visual artist to participate. Bierut famously said if you brush your teeth daily, you've already participated in the 100 Day Project without realizing it. Elle distributed this graphic with some ideas to get your juices flowing: So, as The Great Discontent asked, what will your action be? For 100 days, will you stand, speak, drive, study, drop, act, remove, repeat, examine, replace, introduce, perform, jump, pass, test, roll, kick, run, cook, thank, place, pick, save, throw, cover, shake, count, dance, break, walk, form, deliver, show, raise, reach, catch, sing, sort, develop, measure, discuss, draw, dress, write, meet, climb, take, look, climb, wish, shout, wash, decide, paint, collage, or something else?
Ways Different Disciplines Can Participate
Visual Artists Visual artists have the easiest time participating in an Instagram challenge, but there are ways to vary your Instagram posts. In addition to the finished product, you can post in-process photos or videos of your work, links to your blog posts, behind-the-scenes images, art supplies that you are using, and time-lapse videos of you creating.
Writers Some writers attempt to write a page a day for 100 days. Others write short poems. To make it visual, photograph handwritten notes or excerpts, type a few lines on a vintage typewriter, or bold a great sentence from the passage. You can batch post every few days if you feel like daily posts wouldn't have enough visual interest and photograph a stack of pages.
Dancers Dancers might post a short video of a choreographed phrase or improvisation every day. Or, if a video is too much to commit to for 100 days, how about a still image of yourself dancing with the object of your inspiration — a quote, a piece of art, the view from your window today, pedestrian tasks, whatever inspired your choreography or shape? Perhaps you will create 100 interesting shapes with your body and then at the end string them along into a long phrase, creating connections between each still shape. Maybe you will learn one new thing about kinesiology and healthy body mechanics and post your findings every day. What other ideas can you come up with?
Let's Do This Are you in? It's so much more fun to do together! My Instagram account is: https://www.instagram.com/artfulpursuits/. Come follow me as I create. Leave your project idea and your Instagram handle in the comments below. Let's all follow and support each other!