Hi friends. A few weeks ago, 38 days to be exact, I took on a challenge to draw every day for 100 days. There were/are stipulations.

• I have to draw for at least 20 minutes
• I am allowed and encourage myself to draw from reference photos (I used to think illustrators drew purely from their brains..why?)
• I am not allowed to post anything on Instagram (this was about building a habit, not feeding the one that has me constantly trying to be ‘good’ and show-worthy)
• Every 25 days I get a monetary award for the number of days I have completed ($25 for 25 days, $50 for 50 days, etc)
• On weekdays I have to draw after finishing my normal day-job work, and before starting the next ‘thing’
• On weekends I have to draw right after getting up

38 days in and I’m so happy at how my little challenge has grown my confidence and joy with drawing. The first week had me so uncomfortable with the “YOU CAN’T DO THIS YOU AREN’T A REAL ARTIST” noise in my head that I didn’t want to continue. 20 minutes is so achievable, though, that each day I just decided to keep going.

Last week I worked on a sketch that I just couldn’t wait to get into Illustrator to digitize. To give myself a goal, I decided I’d make myself a new wallpaper for my computer. In September I had downloaded the cutest calendar wallpaper from Paper Raven Co, and was inspired to make my own for the month of November. Here’s a fun speed video of me digitizing part of the illustration. This may be the nerdy graphic designer in me, but I could watch videos of people laying anchor points and coloring artwork for hours.

And that brings me to the main point of this post: to share the goodies I made from this illustration with you! It was such a nice switch in my workflow to make something that I love, and then opening it up to the outside, instead of the other way around. It’s hard to find yourself and your style when you’re paying so much attention to everyone else’s style.

So if you need to spruce up your devices a bit, use the following links to download these freebies (when the file opens in dropbox, click the three dots in the top right to access the ‘download’ button). And if you’re interested in doing your own 100 day challenge, this class on Skillshare really helped me get mine set up.

• Desktop Wallpaper
• Tablet Wallpaper
• Phone Wallpaper

Enjoy your lovely freebies and have a wonderful weekend.

Love, Dylan