100 Thumbnails

A few years ago my friend Tim Diebler and I met for a January lunch and challenged each other to make 100 thumbnail sketches each and every month during the year ahead. Sketches could be pencil, pen, paint, whatever, but had to be FAST (no more than 5-10 minutes each) and there had to be 100. We could work from life (preferred) or from photos (still useful) or from the television (can be fun and challenging, especially when there's a howling blizzard outside). Or from whatever. We just had to draw.

100 thumbnails a month works out to 3-4 sketches a day... or about 30 minutes if you count the deciding-what-to-sketch time. I confess that there were a few months that I got to the 25th or 26th and had to crank out 50 sketches in five days, but I always got them done, one way or another. And so did Tim.

Last month's "Project Woodcut" assignment (15 minutes to collect sketches and color notes as reference for a multicolor woodcut) reminded me of our "100 Thumbnails" adventure, and I've decided to launch another round.

2x3" thumbnails from the front step, September

Granted, I didn't start until Monday, by which time I was already 3- or 4-times-7 days behind for the month of September. I'm still not quite caught up, but I have every intention of getting the first 100 sketches done before October starts.

I christened a brand new sketchbook for the endeavor, which always feels good. (Last time I did this I filled 2 good-sized books with nothing but thumbnails. Raise your hand if you have a backlog of assorted empty sketchbooks that would LOVE to be filled this way.) The first page was horrible, since I started by looking at photos on my computer in the dark WITHOUT my glasses on. Ooph. But here we have page 2, sketches made from my perch on the front step, and I feel much more excited about the process. Thumbnail sketches are a little like weight training- one starts out slowly and ultimately builds skill and stamina.

Speaking of stamina... tomorrow I hang what I expect will be my last big show of the year. (Two days ago I would have said definitively that it's the last, but as of yesterday there's a slight possibility that will change. Won't know for two weeks.) Tomorrow evening we'll go up to Buena Vista for the opening of "5 Lines," an exhibition of drawings by five (of course) local artists and friends. Saturday is the opening for my show and then? An autumn full of opportunities to make thumbnail sketches. 3 or 4 of them. Every day. Can't wait!