Fast to Draw: The Universal Allure of Drawing 100 People a Week | art

IIf you’re lucky, you might spot Liz Steele sitting in the corner of a sun-soaked Sydney café, pencils and water-soluble markers in hand. Half a world away, Mark Taro Holmes leads his sketchbook into the freezing streets of Montreal, “like a bear emerging from hibernation.”

The duo are co-founders of the #OneWeek100People Challenge, an informal global initiative that asks artists to draw 100 people in seven days. The challenge, which is in its 10th year, took place this week, but Steele and Holmes stress the aim is to have all the fun, and anyone can participate and hashtag it at any time.

The two friends met at the International Urban Painters Symposium in Lisbon in 2011 (this year’s event will be held in Toulouse in July), and started the challenge as a way to keep in touch. Since then, it has grown into a phenomenon within the Urban Sketchers community, with hundreds participating from all over the world.

“Liz and I started the challenge as an excuse to keep drawing together,” Holmes says. “Selfishly speaking, this event is my free pass to spend an entire week drawing.”

Drawing people hasn’t always been her passion, says Steele, but “it’s no exaggeration to say that drawing the world around me changed my life and my career” – she, like Holmes, is an architect and now an art teacher.

He was the first to challenge himself to draw 20 people a day for a week. Together they turned a personal experience into a global challenge.

The goal of 100 is deliberately ambitious. Holmes says high goals encourage drawing without self-criticism.

“Quantity is the only goal, not quality,” he says. “Secretly, this is the best way to improve your drawing.”

There’s a “special kind of magic” in momentum, Steele says. “It’s about practice, not perfection.”

“My motivation to live a good life”

Quincy Nadel sits in a Chicago park while her children play.

Taking advantage of this moment for herself, she began to draw—noticing people drawn into the conversation, a parent holding a tired child, the pose of someone waiting alone.

“There is a deep, quiet beauty in the way strangers interact with the world,” she says.

She says the week-long challenge is “exposure therapy” for her perfectionism, having taught herself to draw in her 30s.

“I was digitally exhausted,” she says. “Drawing is my ‘permission slip’ to sit back and watch the world without the pressure of productivity. My sketchbook has become a record of my being ‘here’ rather than ‘online’.”

Nadel documents her journey on Instagram, but says art is a byproduct of a deeper purpose.

“It was about resetting my brain to notice people who typically move through my surroundings,” she says.

People-watching is “endlessly interesting if you slow down enough,” Nadel says.

“I like to paint strangers… anywhere where people would naturally gather,” she says.

Less concerned with capturing a perfect photo, she aims to create simple drawings to reflect the small details she notices that “tell little stories.”

Steele and Holmes say that slow drawing changes the way we engage with our surroundings.

“Drawing uses the brain in a different way than taking a picture,” Holmes says. “You’re forced to really look. It’s active and creative, rather than passively consuming media.”

“Drawing is a great way to interact with the world. I go places and do things I wouldn’t normally do. My sketchbook is my motivation to live a good life.”

Steele says it creates a “tangible connection” with the environment. She says that when she sketches the site, she finds the world “happening” around her.

“You see things you wouldn’t normally see…people stop and talk to you, you hear voices, and that’s encoded in your page,” she says.

When you look at old sketchbooks, you are clearly transported to the moment that was captured.

“You can actually remember the topic of conversation of the person next to you.”

“By day five I’m in the flow.”

Holmes says the challenge is designed to be accessible, despite the ambitious goal. No expensive tools are needed and “success” is defined simply by trying.

“We don’t want people to turn the game into hard work,” he says. “We wanted an activity you couldn’t fail at. You could actually draw 100 diagrams in one day if you treated it like a game.”

Steele says the challenge can be made as simple as one wants: “We don’t care about people who get to 100.”

The goal is to “draw more than usual, however you define that.”

Her advice is to work small, simplify your drawing, and use a limited range of materials. She often alternates between drawing from photos to perfect her style and going out on location to find a rhythm.

“I’m usually rusty the first day, and by day five I’m in flow,” she says. “It becomes addictive. I’ve done 100 reps in a little over an hour before. Once you start, you can’t stop.”

This year, Steele is using a combination of water-soluble pencils and markers. “I can soften the edges if I make a mistake in the middle of a drawing, and I can kind of lift it or soften it.”

It is recommended for crowded places where people are sitting or making repetitive movements.

Although drawing is not a skill that can be acquired overnight, she says anyone can learn by taking the time to retrain their eyes and hands.

“Anyone can do a sketchbook exercise,” Holmes says. “It’s tolerant and accessible. It’s never boring to look at people and imagine their lives.”

Nadel says this practice radically changed her perspective.

“It increased my empathy. When you spend your time looking out for people and watching them and really seeing them…it’s impossible not to feel a sense of gratitude for the ‘ordinary’.”

She hopes the challenge will encourage others to put down their phones, even for a short time.

“There is a whole world happening at eye level if we only choose to see it.”