100 Day Project
Have you heard of #the100dayproject? It’s a global art project that takes place online. The idea is simple: choose a creative project, do it every single day for 100 days, and document your process online. This year’s official project starts Sunday, February 22, 2026.
I attempted it last year, initially trying to paint or draw every day and post what I did on my instagram story. After the first week or so, I narrowed my focus a bit to just painting flowers - I was inspired by all the spring blooms, and every day I’d take a walk and find something beautiful to paint (I did so many watercolors of hellebores, tulips, and irises around that time), and I think that helped a little, but I was treating them all as extremely detailed botanical illustration style pieces and I just couldn’t finish an entire one of those each day, every day! I found it really hard to keep up with sharing my work on instagram daily - if I didn’t complete a full painting or didn’t like what I made, I didn’t want to put it out there. I was also painting in my sketchbook, which wasn’t ideal when I had people express interest in buying some of them. Suffice it to say, mistakes were made, and I got frustrated and didn’t finish the challenge!
A few of my watercolor flowers from last year’s #the100dayproject.
I do so love a challenge, though! I truly enjoy the community around it and the momentum it helps build. When I really get going on one, I find myself positively overflowing with creative energy and new ideas. The feeling of accomplishment after successfully completing one is great, obviously. It also gives me a reason to post on instagram, and whenever I consistently share my work there, I sell more art and get more commissions and other opportunities - so that’s definitely something I’m working on getting better at. For all these reasons, I’m attempting #the100dayproject again this year, but I’ll do things just a little differently to (hopefully) give myself a better shot at success.
I’m going to (once again) create a flower a day, but I’m going to try to use a lot of different media, and experiment with styles. This way, on days when I have plenty of time, I can get lost in the highly detailed watercolor paintings that (with my science illustration background) I naturally gravitate toward, but on busier days, I can experiment, loosen up a little, and just play. I have a whole bunch of art supplies in my stash that I’m excited to try. I have a beautiful new set of gouache paints I want to test out, some linoleum blocks ready to carve up to make prints, aquaboard, posca markers, alcohol inks and powder dyes I’ve been messing with… I also really want to improve at painting on canvas, so I’m going to try to do at least 10 of my 100 flowers on that surface. And for the rest, I’m going to work on quality paper (not my sketchbook) so that I can sell the finished pieces if there’s any interest this go-round.
I’m going to share my work (at least) once a week on instagram. Follow along here! I’m going to try to make it interesting and share behind the scenes, works in progress, videos, timelapses, show my face (eek!) and talk to the camera (eek!), make stories and reels and carousels, and just generally create more engaging, cool-looking content over there. I think once a week is doable, and it takes the pressure off of me to create something ‘perfect’ every day. Maybe it’ll be fun to learn to use instagram more effectively, too? Ugh, this is the part of the challenge that I’m dreading actually, but I know it’ll be good for me!
I’ll also do occasional updates here on the blog (I’m thinking every 25 days). I think it’ll be cool to see what comes of this, and how my project changes over time.
Are you participating in #the100dayproject this year, too? If so, please send me a message on instagram - I’d love to hear about your plans and follow your progress!
