30 Day Drawing Challenge

A while back I blogged that I would do a 30 day drawing challenge. It was an ambitious endeavour, I knew that when I began, and I fully admitted that I wouldn't get it done in 30 days. After counting it seems I finished it in 40 days (which ain't so bad) but this is also partly due to my squeezing in 3 or 4 drawings on the last day. I learned that I don't enjoy drawing so much when I have to do it to a time constraint and I rushed the last few just so I could be done with the thing. If you look carefully you may be even able to pinpoint the picture where I thought "feck this I'm sooo bored with this". On the one hand I wish I would have put the same effort into all of them but as my creativity and enthusiasm for the challenge waned I know I would have gone longer and longer between each drawing and it would have dragged out to 50 or 60 days thus defeating the point of a 30 day challenge. Anyway without further ado I present to you my totally inside-the-lines, midnight wine fuelled/morning post-cornflake doodles. Dun da da dun!! Click any picture to embiggen.

Day 1 Self portrait (my chin's not that big in real life, I swear)

Day 2 Favourite animal

Day 3 Favourite food (Japanese)

Day 4 Favourite place (Japan)

Day 5 Best friend (Dog is man's best friend so I went with that)

Day 6 Favourite book character

I have many favourite book characters, being a voracious reader, but I finally settled on these characters from Robin Hobb's awesome Farseer trilogy and Tawny Man trilogy and drew my own anime-ish inspired interpretation of them.

Day 7 Favourite word (It's just such a lovely sound. PILLOW!)

Day 8 Favourite animated character

Rei Ayanami from the manga and anime series Neon Genesis Evangelion is my favourite animated character ever despite being an unreadable, sad character (or maybe because). She's also a clone and wears a kick-ass one piece whilst kicking ass.

Day 9 Favourite tv show (Community is hilarious. WATCH IT!)

Day 10 Favourite candy

Day 11 Turning point in your life

For those who don't recognise this it's the statue that sits in Eyre Square in Galway City, the city where I attended university. Galway was a big turning point for me. I made friends there that I will have for life and will always love that place no matter where I go.

Day 12 Most recent accomplishment (travelling)

Day 13 Comic

Day 14 Favourite fairy tale

The Children of Lir isn't so much a traditional fairy tale as an old Irish myth. I love the old Irish stories and this is one of my favourites.

Day 15 Family portrait (family's too big, this'll do)

Day 16 Inspiration (this theme annoyed me by being so damn vague)

Day 17 Favourite flower (cherry blossom)

Day 18 Doodle (I call this 'Birth of a Planet')

Day 19 Something new

This was another theme that annoyed me. Something new? I mean c'mon, what is that?! So I googled the words 'something new', saw some footprints in images for some reason and went with this.

Day 20 Something orange

Day 21 Something I want

Day 22 Something I miss (my friends. Can you tell I'm getting bored of it yet?)

Day 23 Something I need (food)

Day 24 A couple

Day 25 Scenery (I don't like drawing scenery so I cheekily skipped this one)

Day 26 Something I don't like (death to all aubergines!!)

Day 27 Something I love

Day 28 Anything you'd like (tried drawing a face, failed, drew this... thing)

Day 29 A place you want to go (oh the laziness of this picture)

Day 30 A congrats banner for finishing

Well although I didn't put the effort into this that I maybe should have I'm glad I did it because at least I got 3 or 4 halfway decent pictures out of it and drawing gives me great pleasure when I'm actually in the mood for it.

Click here to have a look at my previous 30 day challenge, my 30 day photo project. If anyone has any suggestions for any other 30 day challenges/projects that might suit a person of mildly creative and slightly lazy disposition I would appreciate the suggestions.

30 Day Photo Project

Here are the results of my 30 day photo project in which I attempted to photograph something from my day everyday for 30 days. November was a quiet month but I still found a few interesting(-ish) things to do and photograph. Click on a picture to embiggen.

November 1st: Took an... interesting trip to a Japanese doctor's office

November 2nd: Met my friend Darren for wine and all the chips

November 3rd: National Culture Day. I went to the Botanical Gardens where they
had a mini-Autumn festival

November 4th: One of my teachers who lives nearby took me on a bicycle
tour of my neighbourhood

November 5th: Weather was miserable, spent most of the day playing Pokemon online.
I am now the Pokemon champion (33 hours well spent I say)

November 6th: Taught my private student how to express emotion and opinion through
words and badly drawn smiley faces

November 7th: Taught 5th graders at a new school. Sneaky picture of the staff
room

November 8th: Nothing to do so I cycled to the seaside. All the fishermen looked quite
surprised to see me. Even the the ones who had taken a quick break from fishing to
go and pee in the trees opposite the road

November 9th: Went to the Kyogen

November 10th: Was invited to a school festival for one of my teachers'
son's school. Acquired much festival treasure

November 11th: Went to a One Piece themed bar downtown. I was overly
excited as you may be able to tell from the photo

November 12th: Had language exchange with my friend Ai. She gave me an orange and
I inflicted my bad Japanese on her. Probably not the fairest of trades

November 13th: Did sweet feck all today. Here is a picture of my beanbag where I
parked my butt and spent most of the day watching shows

November 14th: Making dinner I noticed my chopped mushroom looked like little
mushroom moustaches

November 15th: Waited at the Hiroshima learner driver centre for a taxi to take
me to a private business English class way up in the hills. The statue is part car
part lady. This is probably what Transformer porn looks like

November 16th: Had nothing to do so I went lurking around the graveyard
next door to my house

November 17th: Met Darren and went to this interesting bar. The owner gave us
free jasmine tea and donuts for some wonderful, unknown reason

November 18th: After the gym my two friends and I passed an art exhibition
in an old bank that one of my other friends is involved in. This is a really
terrible picture. You can't see the wire peanut at all behind the curtain

November 19th: Got into school and one of my students had a bag of presents for me.
Delighted! Then got home and there was a ¥500 voucher after arriving in the post.
Dear diary... Jackpot

November 20th: Another day of doing nothing except sitting on my arse and
vegetating. To represent said vegetation here is a photo of my teddy,
kindle and bed

November 21st: More presents from a different student in a different school.
Must be doing something right. Should I use this to my advantage and create
a tiny, powerful army of elementary school kids?

November 22nd: The sake section at my local shop. I went for wine in the end
since I prefer my alcohol to taste less like feet and more like tasty goodness

November 23rd: Another lazy day of vegetation under the judgmental eyes of
SpongeBob Squarepants. You live in a pineapple you ass, take your judgement
elsewhere

November 24th: Cycled to Mitaki Temple to see kouyou

November 25th: Went to Miyajima Aquarium to see the fishies

November 26th: Taught a different private student how to say "I can..."
Was given a Pokemon toy by her mother for my efforts

November 27th: Spotted this on the way to my Japanese class. Must go Christmas
shopping...

November 28th: Went food shopping. Yawn...

November 29th: I ate a delicious bento by the Atomic Bomb Dome watched
by 5 hungry cats (I cheated here, this is 2 photos put together)

November 30th: Met Darren for delicious payday curry. Got a cupcake afterwards in Mister
Donut and this was on the side of the bag. Seemed apt. Thanks you beautiful people who took
the time to read this post, and thank you to Mister Donut for the compliment encouraging
me to return and stuff my face with their tasty, calorific pastries. Yum!