30 days of drawing in January 2025

In January, I drew for 10 minutes every day.*

Day 1: What I want more and less of in 2025.

What is the 30 days of drawing?

During the Covid pandemic, artist and educator Wendy MacNaughton created DrawTogether, an online drawing show for kids that taught art live over Instagram.

The Grown-Ups Table (aka the GUT) grew from DrawTogether as a subscription-based weekly art class for adults. Through the GUT, Wendy started a new habit: drawing every day for 30 days.

Day 18: Creating a vibrant, bold, single-colour background for a previously-created drawing of a succulent.

My 30 days

Having done the 30 days in January 2024, I knew how motivating and fulfilling it was to engage with art daily. And even though I was travelling for the first half of the month, I rolled up the virtual sleeves of my virtual smock and settled in.

Yes, it was sometimes hard to fit drawing into my day. I often missed posting my drawing in our Substack community. Being so many time zones behind the action, it felt difficult to stay involved. In the midst of travel and sickness and school holidays, I was often several days late. But none of that mattered in the end, because it was Good Enough (one of the themes of the month!).

What did I experience? Moments of pure joy. Lots of flow. Frustration. Happiness. And everything else.

Day 8: Finding, framing, and drawing a piece of the fountain of the Pantheon, Rome.

Just a few days in, I was frustrated with my choice of sketchbook, a cute little square number from Istanbul with “mixed media” paper—imperfect for watercolour as it wasn’t heavy enough and soaked in too quickly.

But it was good enough.

Day 19: Taking a moment to take in all of the sense, then draw the first association I made.

I posted each day to my new Instagram account, spun up after meeting so many amazing people at B2B Forum. It felt vulnerable to share each day, even if I didn’t like what I had done. But it felt good to be documenting a process of exploration.

And it felt good to fill up that not-perfect sketchbook with not-perfect drawings, each one a mark made on a specific day in a specific place. I learned and practiced new drawing techniques. I cultivated attention. I slowed down, and I breathed.

And it was worth it.

Day 11: Gesture drawing. Four sketches of someone playing a banjo.

Day 12: Negative Space. An ink sketch of the Coliseum in Rome.

Day 21: Taste. An ink and watercolour sketch of a cone-shaped cannoli.

Day 26: Drawing Delight. An ink drawing of a banana.

Day 27: Drawing from a photo. An ink and watercolour sketch of a young girl wearing a hat, drawn upside down.

Day 29: The Doodle Game. Two figures, on the left a monster labelled “Devil Snake gone Mad!” And on the right a person with cat ears making a silly face with tongue sticking out, labelled “Kathy with cat ears at a holiday party!”

* Well, not entirely true. There were days I didn’t draw, and days I caught up on several 10-minute exercises. But that’s ok, because as Wendy Mac says, “no rules in art!”

Tess Needham