Supplies, Strategies and Mindset for a 100 Day Project
This is part one (of two) of my blog posts on my 2025 100+ Day Project. Inside you’ll find strategies and tips will help you plan your very own successful 100 Day Project. I can’t wait to see what you come up with!
What is the 100 Day Project?
Have you heard of the 100 Day Project? Officially #The100DayProject is a free, global art project that takes place online. The project has been around for a long time and now there are newsletters, accountabilty groups, prompts, hashtags and more if you want to participate along with a group. I discovered it when I first started learning how to paint in watercolor and I attempted my own project in 2021 to do 100 drawings in my sketchbook over the course of the year. At the time, it was honestly a bit haphazard and it wasn’t my favorite art project. Most of the time I just felt bad that I was not staying consistent and making art every day. Since then, I usually notice the enthusiasm early each year as another round of 100 day project participants make their way into my instagram feed, but I never really got the urge to participate. Until this year.
Why Now?
I feel like the internet is full of people reminding us that consistency is key in anything that you are trying to improve. Progress is made by small efforts over time. This is why many people who complete a 100 day project can make huge strides in whatever project they choose. My inspiration and motivation to attempt a 100 day project actually came from the artist D. Michele Perry. I started following Michele on Instagram in 2024, and while I know that she does 100 day projects, it was her Wake up to Wonder proposal towards the end of 2024 that captured my attention. In a nut shell, it is a daily creative practice that should take less than five minutes a day where you capture one piece of wonder on a 1 x 1 inch piece of paper. The idea was intriguing enough that I signed up for her newsletter to get her free Wake up to Wonder guide. (I tried to find the link again, but I’m not sure it is available anymore.) In her pdf guide were helpful hints, supplies, prompts, and mostly encouragement that creating art daily doesn’t need to be complicated. In her version, the Wake up to Wonder project lasts 365 days - talk about a commitment.
As I embraced the holidays at the end of the year, I was looking for something new and different to help me start the year off creatively. This project was intriguing because:
I liked the idea of a project that was only supposed to take 5 minutes a day. Even when I am busy, five minutes felt like something I could actually manage. Admittedly, I was also skeptical about what you could actually create in five minutes, let alone less time.
The size. She suggested a 1x1 inch piece of paper, which seemed SO TINY. What could somebody possibly create on only an inch square piece of paper?
The year long length of time. In her pdf guide, she had a board where she started to attach these tiny square inch pieces of paper and I could imagine how neat it would be watching little pieces of art accumulate.
Take the Time to Prep
I am busy. Who isn’t? I knew that I needed to do some pre-work in order to set myself up for success once January 1 rolled around. Here are some areas that I would recommend you start with to reduce the overwhelm as you start your own 100 Day Project.
Choose a Medium
100 Day Project Supplies
Despite my curiosity, I was still extremely skeptical about the project. I knew immediately that I didn’t want to do watercolor this time around. I knew that getting out my paints, brushes, and water was just not something that I was going to want to do every day. Even the idea of it felt overwhelming. Setting up my stuff alone could probably take the full five minutes depending on how cluttered my art desk became throughout the course of the day. Even with a limited color palette, I could see spending too much time just deciding what colors I would use that particular day or what I should paint. Memories of my less than optimal previous 100 Day Project lingered and I knew I had to create the easiest project possible to kick start my year. Instead of watercolor, I decided I would stick to drawing and I would draw in pen. My set of six micron pens would be my drawing materials. I also decided that I would only draw in pen. No preliminary pencil drawings. No outlines. No light table. No graphite paper.
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Prep Your Supplies in Advance
Cutting small paper in 1 inch increments.
I was intrigued by the idea of using tiny pieces of paper. I have never worked on something as small as 1 x 1 inch and I admit that I was pretty skeptical once I started cutting down paper to that size. I took Michelle’s advice and wanted to cut enough pieces of paper that I could get through the month of January without needing to cut anything else. I was also secretly telling myself that if this project was dumb, I could quit it at the end of a month. I decided to cut up pieces of Arches Hot Press Watercolor Paper from a pad that I had buried in my supplies. I have discovered that I do not like painting on hot press watercolor paper. I do not like the lack of texture. I do not like how the paper handles water. I do not like how the paint dries. So even though this is technically a nice watercolor paper, I chopped it up into lots of smaller pieces. I had to keep reminding myself to not make things difficult. Use what you have. Since I was having a hard time wrapping my brain around paper that was so tiny, I cut up a variety of sizes that were based around 1 inch. The majority of my pieces were 1 x 1 inch, but I also cut up pieces that were 1 x 2 inches, 2 x 2 inches, 3 x 5 inches, etc. so that I could see what I was most drawn to (see what I did there?). I figured that at some point, I might want to spend longer than five minutes on a drawing and would want a larger piece of paper. I chopped up enough pieces to get through the month and I put them in an envelope that I kept on my art desk.
Choose a Theme (loosely)
2024 Ornament.
The possibilities for a 100 Day Project are literally endless. So it can be helpful to pick a theme. Think about what skill you are trying to build. Are you trying to explore color? Do you want to learn how to draw flowers? Are you interested in gesture drawing? Or portraits? This helps give you a starting point when you are staring at the dreaded blank page.
Towards the end of 2024, I started experimenting with deconstructed landscapes in both watercolor and in pen. I was combining elements such as trees, mountains, and water in different ways and it was fun to create compositions purely from my imagination. I was also creating some relatively small drawings and paintings. I did a series of ornaments that were only 2 x 3 inches in size. In these drawings, I was especially enjoying experimenting with different kinds of pine trees. Since drawing trees was a subject that I already knew I wanted to continue to draw into 2025, it seemed like the perfect focus for this project. I also liked that I did not need to have a reference photo to do it. Even if I just drew pine trees over and over again, I knew that they would all be different.
Set Your Expectations
Decide what you really have the capacity for before you start your project. This project is supposed to be empowering, not a drag. Do you have thirty minutes to spend every day on your project? Do you have ten minutes? Do you have five? Do you have a space where your project can be set up and waiting for you each day or are you going to have to set up each day? When are you hoping to work on your project? In the morning? At night? What habit do you already have, like a morning cup of coffee that you can attach your project to. You have to make your project as easy as humanly possible, especially to start, because you’ll need that early momentum of consistency to last day after day and month after month.
More than anything I wanted this project to be easy. In the past, I struggled with how long working on a 100 Day Project could take. It can take me a long time to create a sketch or a watercolor painting. I knew that the five minute limit was key, but there was also a voice in my head that was criticizing the idea of five minutes or less that Michelle recommended. I had thoughts like, if it only takes five minutes, is it really art? And, if you want to create something that is meaningful or “good” it should take you more than five minutes. I knew that these kinds of thoughts were not going to be helpful over the course of a project, so I gave myself these guidelines in advance of starting.
The most important goal of my project was to simply show up and create something every day.
Each drawing would take five minutes or less.
I would try to work on it every day. If I missed a day, I could catch up if I wanted to, but I also did not have to.
I would only use my cut up pieces of paper and my pens.
I wasn’t going to call it a 100 Day Project or a Year Project, or anything, yet. My first goal was just to get through a week.
I couldn’t agonize over what to draw. As soon as an idea popped into my head, that is what I would have to go with, regardless of how it turned out.
I could interpret the theme of tree however I wanted.
I wasn’t going to tell anybody about the project or share anything about it until I got through a month, and maybe not even then.
What would your own list of guidelines be?
Just Start (without judgement)
You can do all of the prep that you want, but at some point you are just going to have to start and see what happens. The blank page can be intimidating, but I think you have to start your project without any expectations of creating something “good.” I think that the purpose of a 100 Day Project is really in the act of showing up rather than the outcome. You might not like most of the stuff that you are creating, so just accept that from the get-go and get out of your own way.
With my supplies prepped, my theme chosen, and my expectations set, I got started on my project on January 1, 2025. At the time, I had no idea whether it was a project that would last, but I was excited to get started. For each drawing, I would put the date on the back as well as the drawing number. January 1, 2025 was drawing number one. What I discovered almost immediately was that I absolutely adored the tiny 1 x 1 inch sized paper. I was amazed at how much detail I could include on such a tiny workspace. As I started to accumulate more and more tiny drawings, it was also so fun to start to put them together. Each one was like its own little tile that I could tetris together in different ways. I managed to complete a drawing for each day in January. I found that most drawings only took me a minute or two, which I think is the real reason why I have not given up yet.
Day 1 Front
Day 1 Back
As you have probably guessed, I am well past January by now with this project and I cannot wait to share with you how it has gone in the next post: 100 Days of Creativity: What You Can Learn from Making Tiny Art Every Day.