Every year, -ish, I do this challenge. I love it. And every year, before I start, I get a bit stressed how hard people are to draw.
This is One Week 100 People — a challenge that runs annually in the Urban Sketchers community, where sketchers commit to drawing one hundred people in one week. It sounds challenging. It is, a little. But when you start, and something loosens up, and the faces start coming.
I always do better at faces than I think I will. Even the hilariously misshapen ones are somehow delightful. I don’t often get a genuine resemblance, but if it looks like a person at all, I’m happy with it. Once I get into it, I always feel that faces are fun, and why was I so resistant?
A little history
I first did this challenge in 2021. I’d never drawn people before — not once. I picked up a brush pen, found an episode of Edwardian Farm (a British documentary where living historians recreate life on an Edwardian farm, which is exactly as charming as it sounds), and started drawing. I didn’t get to 100, and that was fine. I loved these little gestures.
I skipped 2022 and 2023. Life happened. Or maybe I was too intimidated to begin.
In 2024 I came back with a Faber Castell dual markers portrait set and spent the week with Murdoch Mysteries, Oak Island, and Death in Paradise keeping me company. You can see the 2024 entry here.
2025 was my favorite year so far — I experimented with materials, mostly using the Inktense Shade and Tone Mixed Media Set, and the full color pages are ones I’m genuinely proud of. You can see all of those pages in last year’s post.
And this year?
This year’s faces will be coming from Stargate SG1, mostly. It’s what I’m streaming right now. I have my sketchbook taped up and ready — a grid of narrow green masking tape waiting to be filled with faces. This I plan to sketch in the business center of my gym and attempt to sketch people live. Quick gestures, people in motion, no time to overthink it.
Maybe that’s the best possible way to start. One hundred people. One week. Here we go.
They say a year in review should be a highlight reel—a collection of my best sketches, crispest lines, and most vibrant colors. But when I look back at my stacks of sketchbooks from the last twelve months, I don’t see a gallery of masterpieces.
I see a graveyard of the unfinished.
I see where life went sideways and I simply stopped. I see half-finished classes left and never touched again. I see “failed” sketches where my lines just wouldn’t click. For a while, this felt like a lack of discipline. I felt like I was falling behind.
But as I sit down to write this, I realize something important: You can’t have a “failed” sketch unless you actually sat down to draw. Every incomplete page is proof that I showed up. Every “bad” drawing was a risk I was brave enough to take. This year wasn’t about the finish line; it was about the messy, frustrating, and ultimately beautiful process of staying in the game. Even when there were long gaps where all I did was write down the date and the weather.
Today, I’m celebrating the journey. Let’s look back at my year of incompletes—and why they might be the most important things I’ve ever drawn. I showed up anyway, in a year where life rather kicked my ass with illness, accidents, and a major death in the family. So many losses, so maybe not finishing most of the classes I started, isn’t such a bad thing. Maybe it isn’t failure at all.
The year started strong for me, I was feeling good and actually accomplishing the lessons in Sketching Now Foundations.
I was ready to go strong and do Sketching Now Travel Sketching during my family trip to Mund’s Park, but this is when things began to go awry. I did however, do some travel sketches even if I didn’t manage to participate in the class itself. Admittedly most of these sketches I did once I got home.
The summer was a mix of color palettes, a few attempts at sketches, amid the missed days.
Autumn fell completely apart. I had hoped to sketch buildings during my family vacation, and thusly sketch during my trip and do the Sketching Now Buildings course, but devastating disaster struck.
Coping with grief as well as recovering my own health issues, brought me to December with grand ideas for a December Daily. I did sample my Diamine Inkvent, and I did do a lot of collage in my sketchbook.
Stillman and Birn Sketchbooks
I set out this year to test each type of paper in the Stillman and Birn sketchbook line, and I did accomplish all but the Nova. Final verdict, Alpha remains my favorite. I did like the ivory colored papers more than I expected to, however. I liked the Delta paper the least, as I found it seemed to pill under water, which was not desirable for me. The smoother papers, Epsilon and Zeta were also nice. Better for ink work, than watercolor. Beta was fine, but with heavy paper, I expected smoother washes, so Alpha remains top for me with my preferred ink and watercolor. I still have to test the Nova range, with the tinted papers, and I’m looking forward to that in the future. I stuck with the 5.5×8.5 inch landscape, and as the year closes, I’ll admit, I’m really jonesing for a bigger page and for a portrait layout!
Improvements
I admit, I’m hard on myself, and I never see my own improvements until years later when I look back. I do feel I learned a lot this year about how paper affects results, and about the various materials and palettes and did color swatches with. I worked with Inktense a bit, and I sampled a lot of different paints. I would have liked to see more improvement with my drawing skills, but I also did not draw that much, when it comes down to it.
I did complete eight sketchbooks this year! Two of them were begun in 2024, and several of them were thicker paper, so only a few pages at 26 sheets.
Vol 17 – Travel Sketching for 2024, then Watercolor Pencil Magic, then in January 2025 I picked it up for my daily sketchbook and Foundations.
Vol 19 – Gamma. Mid-February 2025 to early April 2025. Foundations. Color studies.
Vol 20 – Delta. April to June 2025.
Vol 21 – Food
Vol 22 – Beta. June to July 2026
Vol 23 – Food (Page Design)
Vol 24 – Zeta. August to December 2025.
TAKEAWAY
My chief takeaway might be to simply return to the page. Regardless of how it feels, or however long it has been with nothing, just return to the page. Do some color tests, or play with ink. I found peace in those moments, when it seemed there was little peace to be had personally, or in the world. You can learn a lot about art and your tools and your mediums just from color swatches. Return to the page and you’ve showed up, you are continuing the journey. This is about progress not perfection. A few years from now, I will see the progress, and the memory of the pain and the struggle will have faded. But I will be very glad I showed up to the page, even just to mark the date.
GOALS FOR 2026
I’d like a bit more consistency. I always aim to finish the classes I start, but maybe I can also find ways to give myself permission to sketch small things, just to keep the practice in.
Document the everyday. This is always my chief objective. Document life as it really happens. Sketch the everyday moments, or objects, or even abstractly capture the feelings in color.
Share and participate a bit more in the online communities and classes I’m part of. Share more here in my blog as well as touch base with what I am learning as I go along.
CONCLUSION
In a nutshell, I did more than I think I did this year! I struggled to keep sketching when life hit hard, but I am glad I sketched, and painted, and experimented.
I have big hopes for the month. I’ve been deep in grief and hopefully returning to the page with sketching my advent will be just the thing. (Or, at least that was the plan. Execution was far less than perfect.)
Every year I love Diamine Inkvent and this year is no different. Each day gets the ink swatch. I wanted to sketch each building in the Jacquie Lawson Christmas Village this year, but insecurity got the better of me. I did trace the first week of buildings, however. In red, as the Liz Steel Patreon theme this month is Red.
This was traced in Procreate, then printed. I inked it over with J Herbin 1670 Hematite Rouge and a dip pen with a crow quill.
The other procreate traced Christmas village buildings, and the Portuguese coin I sketched in ink, using Ferris Wheel Press ink Leadcast Letters.
I am not quilting this year, as I do not have access to my sewing area, but each year I still like to follow the Bonnie Hunter Winter Mystery Quilt, even if I’m not sewing it. This is my second of what I’m calling my December Daily captures. These quilting clues release weekly, but they are a significant part of my December traditions each year for many years now.
The December tradition I’m loving the most this is The Diamine Inkvent for 2025. This year is the Teal Edition and the inks so far are:
Celestial Skies – Shimmer – A teal with a gold and red shimmer.
Energy – A purple with a green sheen.
Carousel – Waterproof pigment red!
Smoky Tobacco – Walnut brown, scented.
Marie Rose – An amber with a green chroma.
Blush – A lovely warm pink.
Fir and Fog – Greyish Green. Love this ink! It looks more green in person than it scanned.
I saw a You Tube video that inspired me. She had painted every day for a year, then two years, a phenology wheel. Each month was a different theme. I thought maybe I’d try this and see if it could get me back to painting or sketching.
Since I was a week away from a new month, I decided to do a week worth in my Stillman and Birn Zeta sketchbook of the skies and weather. I’m hoping to keep it up in December and do a full sized one.
I tried to start sketching food again, thinking that I would sketch the details of my trip. But the accident that happened then derailed everything. However, here is my single sketch, half a day of food.
Jamie's Sketchbook 