The 100 Mountain Project

Behind The ScenesAllWatercolor100 Mountain ProjectGouache

24 Oct

Long term challenges were never my forte … but that doesn't mean I don’t think they're useful!

Having deadlines and a rigid schedule in my daily life and job makes me want to be more free and spontaneous in my creative journey. (I recently learnt this can be understood as the chaos-order balance)

And if there is a famous challenge in the creative community, apart from inktober, I would say this is the 100 day challenge! I've tried to tackle it several times without meeting my expectations.

When I tried it for the first time, I was really inspired and had the energy to go for it! But sooner than later, I discovered the format at that time, didn't work for me. Painting 100 days means painting almost everyday.

Because of this chaos-order balance… there are days where after work I just want to rest, others where I want to enjoy a longer walk with Kenzo, others where I need to do adult things, you get it …

… but I'm still attracted by these kind of challenges or movements that inspire you to paint more often, I think they can help us dream bigger and tackle greater projects.

So I thought this time, I’ll revisit this 100 day project with a few adjustments:

I switched the focus from 100 days to 100 mountains. I love mountains! I love to see them, photograph them, paint them, etc.
This small change makes me feel there is no pressure to paint all those 100 consecutive days but instead, we'll embark on a journey where we get to meet and see 100 different mountains around the world, doesn't this sound fascinating already?
I'll not refer to it as a challenge, but as a project. It doesn't matter how long it takes me to complete it. My focus and goal is to enjoy the journey without any expectations of any kind, and see where it gets me.
What will I learn? Will I finish the project? Which one will be my favorite painting? Oh I never thought about this before… Why is this happening on my paper? Let's approach it with curiosity and from a place of love and growth.
Accountability helps with the follow-up of the projects and I’ve been enjoying very much the days where we had sketchbook sessions together so I want to invite you along this ride!
You can participate in this project as much as you want, zero commitments! It could be just as a viewer, or painting at the same time than me, sharing your experience and art with the group, just jumping on and off the different live sessions, you decide.

I'll post all the details related to the 100 mountain project in my virtual community: Our Artistic Cabin!

This community is based on Circle and I'd love to welcome you there!

To enter the community, you'll need to use this link and create your own user.

There you'll able to find all the dates for the sketchbook painting sessions, tips and tricks to paint outside, watercolors and gouache exercises, I also share there my favorite supplies and special tools I find, my favorite art related books, as well as we have different spaces where we can discuss and post our art!

Once you're there you'll see it's quite intuitive and organized but of course, send me a message if you have any doubts or need help with it! The community is only accessible via web browser or via the iOS Circle app, there's not an android app available yet but latest news from Circle say it’ll come very very soon!

If you rather not enter the community, that's fine too! I'll occasionally share my progress on IG, you can follow me here: @afrisartjourney, or in this blog!

If you want to follow up the project or even join in the fun, I plan to share with you every month a list of mountains I'll paint and the schedule of what you should expect.

This doesn't mean I’ll show you live every mountain I paint but, according to the time I have each month, I'll share with you some posts, images, sketchbook sessions to paint together, resources, etc.

What's on my mind so far:

At least one live sketchbook session a month
Free reference photos for every mountain we paint
Thumbnails / sketches with different compositions
Lessons learnt / critiques to my own paintings and what we can learn from them
Tips and techniques to paint specific textures / mountains
Interesting resources to learn about the mountains or stories about each peak / geological form.

As materials, I will use mainly watercolors but I don't want to have any string attached here! If one day I want to paint with pencils or inks or gouache instead of watercolors I will, and I recommend you do the same!

If you want to buy some materials because you're starting with watercolors right now I recommend:

Watercolor paper with some percentage of cotton - at least 60%. I love Arches or Hahnemühle paper.
Watercolor paints - good starting brands are schmincke, white nights, cotman.
Brushes - to start, you’ll only need a size 2 and a size 8

SNEAK PEEK of mountains and organisation so far: