Your Year in Art: A Project for Each Week of the Year

By Chelsea Ward

Overflowing with drawing prompts and tips, Your Year in Art will invigorate beginning and practicing artists as they build skills, gain confidence, and overcome artistic anxiety with fun, creative prompts for every week of the year. 

Leave your artistic anxiety behind with 52 weeks of hearty inspiration. Your Year in Art is a must-have guide to rouse your creative side. Designed for aspiring, beginning, and practicing artists looking to hone their skills, Your Year in Art is packed with unique projects and encouraging instruction.

The mission of Your Year in Art is to sharpen your art skills and quiet your inner critic by showing you how to draw habitually and spontaneously. As you build your craft, techniques, and confidence, this guide encourages you to create in a way that celebrates your individuality.

Fifty-two clever drawing prompts, along with tips and tricks, from expert illustrator Chelsea Ward will get your creative juices flowing. Weekly challenges include making a “self-portrait” by sketching things that describe you; practicing mark-making techniques like cross-hatching and stippling; filling a sketchbook page with drawings on a theme, like potted plants or fire hydrants; and adding water to ink drawings to practice wash techniques.

Join fellow artists in an exciting yearlong journey of developing creative habits and discovering new ways to express yourself.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media
• Release date: Nov 27, 2018
• ISBN: 9781633226500

Book preview

Your Year in Art

Your Year in

Art

A project for every week of the year to overcome blank-page anxiety and inspire creative exploration

Chelsea Ward

Contents

Introduction

Chapter 1: Basics

Week 1: Art-solutions

Week 2: Empowering Words

Week 3: Shape-finding

Week 4: Mark-making

Week 5: Ink Wash

Week 6: Points of View

Week 7: Contour Drawing

Week 8: Color Theory

Chapter 2: Loosening Up

Week 9: Mindful Doodles

Week 10: Draw Your Tools

Week 11: Primary Color Challenge

Week 12: Eraser-free Drawing

Week 13: Line Drawing

Week 14: Opposite Hand

Week 15: Illustrated Recipe

Week 16: Mandalas

Week 17: Living Letters

Week 18: Pattern Search

Week 19: Zendoodles

Chapter 3: Branching Out

Week 20: Lists of Lists

Week 21: Baker’s Dozen

Week 22: Drawings by Color

Week 23: Draw in Public

Week 24: Scapes

Week 25: Sky Study

Week 26: Sketch Crawl

Week 27: Map-making

Week 28: House Portrait

Week 29: Collect a Rainbow

Week 30: Botanical Study

Week 31: Windows

Chapter 4: Getting Personal

Week 32: Artist’s Block Solutions Flowchart

Week 33: Self-portrait Collage

Week 34: Your Day in Doodles

Week 35: Hand Study

Week 36: X-ray Vision

Week 37: Figure Study

Week 38: Illustrated Quote

Week 39: Self-portrait

Week 40: Coordinates

Week 41: Bucket List

Chapter 5: Keeping at It

Week 42: Timed Drawing

Week 43: Daily Challenge

Week 44: Bird’s Eye View

Week 45: Drawing Still Life

Week 46: Rorschach

Week 47: Travel Postcards

Week 48: Where You Stand

Week 49: Micro & Macro

Week 50: Elapsed Time Study

Week 51: Block Busters

Week 52: Art It Forward

Meet the Author

Introduction

As an artist, there’s nothing quite as frustrating as not knowing what to create next. You know—that anxious feeling when you’re not sure how to start a new project or what to draw on that first blank page of your sketchbook? Welcome to Your Year in Art! Designed to give you the encouragement and inspiration you need to fuel your art-making all year long, the prompts, ideas, and creative tips throughout this book will help you build your skills, while giving you the artistic confidence to bust blank-page anxiety!

Every week of the year, you’ll be treated to a new motivating and engaging assignment. It may be as simple as trying out a new drawing tool. It might involve practicing a skill you already know. It might mean accepting that you don’t have to make amazing art every day but just draw something—anything—even if end result underwhelms you.

Invest in Yourself

During your year in art, make a personal promise that you’ll devote the time to yourself and your craft. It could be five minutes every morning while you’re having your daily coffee or 30 minutes once a week when you block out everything except art and drawing. The important thing is to just do it, regardless of outcome. I often only have time at the very end of the day to sketch the items on my nightstand while lying in bed! These may not be my best or most detailed drawings, but the important thing is that I made the time to draw!

TIP

F YOU HAVE AN OFF-DAY OF DRAWING, DON’T TEAR THE PAGE FROM YOUR SKETCHBOOK! INSTEAD, SAVE IT SO THAT YOU’LL BE ABLE TO CHART YOUR PROGRESS WEEKS FROM NOW AND SEE HOW MUCH YOUR SKILLS HAVE GROWN!

Experiment with Tools & Materials

There are several tools you can use during your year in art, but I recommend always having these essentials on hand: mechanical pencils, drawing pencils of various lead hardness, waterproof pens, water-soluble pens, permanent markers, erasers, and some small clips to keep your pages together. Other tools I recommend are travel watercolors, colored pencils, a pH neutral glue stick, and a water-brush or small paint brush.

You will also need a sketchbook! A multimedia sketchbook provides a good surface for drawing, while allowing you the