What I Learned from 30 Days of Self-Portraits
Or, 28 Days Later...
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Back in late August, which seems like an eternity ago, I put forth a challenge: #Selfietember. Thirty glorious days of self-portraits. I’d done it before, and I was itchin’ to rope you all in on it. And some of you were actually game!
Do anything for a month and you’ll learn things. You’ll get better at whatever you’re doing for those thirty days, and you’ll learn about yourself. What did I learn during #Selfietember? Allow me to regale you…
I am a different person every ding-dong day.
Same model every day, yet a different face showed up on each page. If you think drawing yourself every day will become monotonous, think again. You couldn’t actually draw yourself the same way from one day to the next if you tried; different day, even different hour, different things are emphasized or minimized. However you feel comes out in that day’s drawing. It’s going to be wild to look back on these.
I change my mind—but then again, not really. (See what happened there? LOLLLL)
About midway through, I went from feeling like “Yay, another #Selfietember drawing!” to “For the love of all things holy why did I do this whyyyyy??” Now, I love to draw, so this shift in enthusiasm puzzled me at first. Then I realized the issue wasn’t drawing the selfies it was the desire/time differential: I wanted to do my selfies, but I also had other things I wanted to draw, like the comix trip I keep talking about but not posting here because there’s only so much time in the day and I’m doing other things like drawing self-portraits, because somebody thought it was a good idea to do a thirty-day self-portrait challenge. And it was! Just, like, maybe not the time when I’d hoped to launch a web comic. *sigh*
We love challenges.
Put a monthlong challenge out there, and people will sign right up. Any kind of challenge—a month of strenuous Yoga, dump a bucket of ice water over your head for charity, even though a person could, um, just donate to the charity. Why do we love challenges so much? I suppose it’s the feeling of accomplishment one feels upon crossing that finish line! Except…
We don’t always finish the challenges.
You know what’s worse than not finishing the challenge you signed up for? When you’re the one who put forth the 30-day challenge and you don’t complete it. I’m talking about me, of course. So if you joined #Selfietember and didn’t complete it… Congratulations!! Anything you did, any selfies you got done, were achievments. You drew on that day. You felt those feels. You used the art supplies. You rocked this town, and rocked it inside out. Extra congratulations to L,T!! subscriber Lorraine, who actually finished the entire month!
Me? I’m still a little sheepish, but I’ll get over it. And no, I’m not completing the selfies I missed, because I’m doing my comic, dang it!
I surprised myself.
At times, I was truly amazed by the excellent drawings that came out on the page. I thought, Wow, I’m good.
I shocked myself.
At times, I was truly amazed by the crap I drew on some poor innocent page, virtual or once-a-tree. I thought, Wow, I suck. Then I’d remember I had another shot tomorrow and be okay with it. Best antidote for a drawing you don’t like: do another drawing.
How I really feel about the whole thing.
I love that I did whatever I did of #Selfietember. I love that I expected to do the whole thing, didn’t, and was okay with that. I had stuff going on, and I still do (and probably always will). You had stuff going on—life. Who was keeping score? Not me! And I love that. I loved picking one medium, Procreate, and then switching to analog pencil, and back again. I loved remembering that this was supposed to be FUN, which made it fun again. And I love that I can now do a self-portrait whenever I feel like it…which, because I make a comic about myself in my journal each morning, turns out to be almost every day anyway. Thirty-day challenge? Heck, I’m practically in my 30th decade of daily selfies! Anyway, I loved it all, and what I loved most was seeing your selfies.
What did you learn during #Selfietember? Do you resent the idea that you had to learn anything, and why can’t this just be fun, Suzan?? Share your feelings in the comments, and thanks to all who shared their selfies! See you next September…
The older I get, the faster life seems to go. There's less and less time to do all the things on my lists! I wanted to do selfies and more gel printing and cooking and knitting and seeing friends and... The list goes on! I'm working on being more intentional, saying "yes" to the things that matter most.
I wish I had completed more. I posted one image, and was done. Once I realized I had to accomplish different looks—it all seemed too complicated. Hopefully next year with some college under my belt I will be able to create more self-portraits during Selfie-tember (if you have it again). Thank you for having the challenge. It was fun seeing all the different aspects of people’s faces.