#010 Three Materials Challenge Time - HOORAY!

Let’s fill up some sketchbooks

Jun 28, 2024

Three materials 2023 Day 65/100. Drawing Wimbledon on live TV. No pausing! Felt pens and coloured pencil.

Hello

The sun is out here and the summer holidays are approaching. It’s time for the Three Materials Challenge which starts on 8th July. This post gives information on the challenge and I’ve also included some thoughts about what I hope to get out of the challenge. But let’s start with the basics…

Three materials on holiday. I kept using 3 materials even after the end of the challenge. Pencil and paint pens.

What is the Three Materials Challenge?

Naomi, me and Kathryn on Day 50/100 of last year’s challenge. We drew at the Museum of the Home.

A 50 day project hosted by me, Kathryn Boyt and Naomi Tipping. Originally started by Kathryn a few years back with the intention to

draw from life every day
use 3 materials
spend no more than 30 mins
Three materials 2023: Day 63/100: strawberry field. Cyanotype paper, crayon and pencil.

Why take part?

The accountability of drawing every day for the challenge really helps me get back into observational drawing. I’m so grateful for the sketchbooks I have from the last two years of the challenge. They are a visual diary of my summers and it’s great revisiting where I went, who I was with and how I was feeling.

Three materials challenge 2023 Day 22/100: diary of a local walk. Ink prepped page, coloured pencil and crayons.

For me, drawing from life captures moments so much more than photos

Three Materials 2023 Day 99/100: The view from a cafe in Italy. Capturing the heat with non-representational colours. Paint pens and crayon

I’m keen to start the summer and fill up some sketchbooks. It’s so easy to get rusty and start fearing the blank page so a 50 day challenge will help me to get back into daily drawing. Join in with the challenge for a day, a week or for 50 days! It’s a great way to get back into sketchbooking.

Post your sketch on Instagram with the hashtag #3materialsdrawingchallenge, or don’t post and just keep it for yourself if you’d rather not. There’s no pressure. It’s a celebration of working in a sketchbook every day.

Live Q&A

There is a very exciting live call on Instagram on Saturday 29th June on Naomi Tipping’s account. It will be for 30 mins at 7pm BST. It’s a great opportunity to ask any questions. Naomi and Kathryn will be live and I’ll be on the chat answering questions you post.

More info and tips and advice

There’s lots of info here in the post I wrote last year. Lots of tips and advice.

So - my goals for the challenge: Three materials and me

Here’s a question a friend asked me the other day which made me think for a bit.
Why are you doing the challenge again?

It’s a good question. I’ve made some drawings that I’m proud of and have worked out some good combinations of materials.

‘How’s that a challenge?’ she said.

I’m keen to keep developing and not use the same palettes, materials and composition. It’s easy for me to fall into this comfort zone in order to produce a sketch that will probably work and look good on Instagram. But I’m approaching my last term on my MA in Children’s Book Illustration and I want to keep learning new things. Last year I set myself some goals so I’m going to give myself some new targets again.

I will share my goals each week in case it’s helpful to others who need a starting point or a bit of extra motivation.

Here are some things I might think about:

Use up old materials

I had a desk tidy and have so many materials that I don’t use. It’s time to experiment with pastels, ink and crayons.

The 7 contrasts in colour

I’ve been reading ‘The Art of Colour’ by Johannes Itten which explores the seven contrasts in colour. 7 contrasts will work well with 7 days in a week so I’m planning to explore each of them.

My bookshelves

I have so many books. All those bargain purchases from second hand bookshops have been ignored and it’s time to use them. Each day I’ll pick a book and take some inspiration from it.

Tell a story

I did so much reading about sequence in the first year of my MA and it was brilliant to use it in my sketchbook. I’m going to go back to Scott McCloud’s ‘Understanding Comics’ for inspiration.

I’d love to know if you’re joining and will be working on your own targets. Let me know in the comments or send me a message.

A tour of my sketchbooks: the good, the ‘bad’ and the abandoned sketches

If you’d like to see more of my work, I’m adding lots of bonus Three Materials content for my paid subscribers in July to celebrate the start of the challenge. If you upgrade you will have access to:

Two tours of sketchbooks from last year’s challenge.
A one hour recorded chat about colour with my friend, illustrator Emma Block. We both love colour but use it differently and it’s a great look at our sketchbooks and inspirations.
The Messy Desk Dispatch archive of sketchbooks. Each month I film a flick through of a sketchbook and post it in my paid newsletter.

In the videos I talk about how I approached the sketches, what I learned and what wasn’t working.

That’s all from me.

Thanks so much for reading. I’m looking forward to starting a new sketchbook and seeing lots of Three Materials sketches in July. Don’t forget the live call on Saturday 29th June!

Charlotte x