Day 1 of 100 Starts Nice and Green

It doesn't have to look like me—starting 100 days of comic panels and affirmations.

“Don't be satisfied with stories, how things have gone with others. Unfold your own myth.” ― Rumi, The Essential Rumi

Happy Sunday! 

I hope to keep things short today. I have good intentions, but I’m afraid at the end of this, I’ll have proven I simply can’t. I need to wander a bit. It doesn’t mean I don’t know how to edit. I appreciate those of you who wander along with me and find your own path for wandering in, through, and around.

The 100 Day Project starts today. I’ve talked about it a few times, especially in the context of choosing a project for a series. (I am always working on a series of some form. An illustrated journal, after all, is a series of consecutive days or weeks. But beyond that built-in container, series is an important and foundational thread for me.)

🎯 I had a moment of revelation this week, a minor revelation, maybe, but it still cracked something open. I realized I don’t have to look like me.

That's what today is about. But it's also about community, about intentions, about accountability, about understanding what works for us and what doesn't to help us stay motivated, and about doing things that scare us.

It’s also about looking in the mirror.

I hope you'll read on.

Amy

(This will be cut off in email because there are a number of images. You can click through to read in the app or a browser.)

Just stay true to your own voice and aesthetic. It will all be fine.

Here Goes 100

Today is the start of the 100 days, and I look forward to seeing how it begins to unfold. I have a loose rubric, a loose sense of the boxes I want to check. The project is part exploration, part skill building, part skin thickening, part passion project, part affirmation, and an exercise in positive thinking.

I’ll be working with comic panels. I’ve done this in a variety of ways through the years. I did it much less self-consciously fifteen or so years ago. I wish I could get back to that me, the me in the pink supergirl pajamas standing on a balcony in Oregon drawing the same scene into a panel. I was a more optimistic me, a thinner me. I didn’t know we wouldn’t always have vacations.

There have been many daily journal projects in a graphic novel (or comic) format through the years. My illustrated journal has comic elements at times and initially grew out of my need to combine my love of graphic novels, sketchnotes, and regular drawing.

When I did comic panels for the 100 Day Project back in 2018, I didn’t use the phrase “diary comic.” (I think I called it a diary sketchnote that year, an outgrowth of a “graphic novel diary” I'd been keeping and an acknowledgment of the ways sketchnoting was expanding my approach to visual journaling.)

This year, I planned to do a single digital daily panel with a focus on a simple self-portrait each day. (Yes, this is what amounts to a lot of talking heads.) I planned to pair each self-portrait with a “daily note,” but the idea of using affirmations instead really fell into place last week.

What

My plan looks like this:

1. Single digital panel each day

2. Self portrait

3. Affirmation

Why (learning ground/growth  mindset):

1. Continued skill building with Procreate, especially in terms of more efficient processes for inking and coloring comics

2. Continue to tweak my brushes to sort out what works for me (I play with the settings all the time, trying to find the perfect brush)

3. Sort out the character

4. Sort out the character in various angles

5. Practice positive thinking

6. Think mindfully about why certain lines of thought are so hard

7. Continue to explore personal palette and color

It sounds pretty simple. If I grow beyond this, great. If I stick right here, that's okay, too. I'm all about the learning model inherent in repetition.  I know that there is potential for growth and personal insight in doing something for 100 days.

(I’m going to need to loosen up and not do things over and over a dozen times to make this work. Wonky lines show up especially wonky when digital.)

Day 1

Today’s ”list” image uses the day 1 portrait. Here is the 1/100 version.

I did spend more time for the day 1 portrait than I think I’ll have (because it was also coming in for my weekly list). I explored a few things and learned a few things. (I’m loving the dots.)

But this is a two-part project. The drawing was done, but I needed an affirmation. Hmmm.

This one is maybe a bit lukewarm, a slow start, but it feels right based on the self-portrait talk today.

I am accepting what is now.

That can go all kinds of directions.

Is this stick-with-it-able? Sustainable? Ridiculous? Not sure.

Self-portraits 

I’ve been doing weekly self-portraits (on paper) since 2019. Every. Single. Week. No matter what else I draw in the week, I know there will be a self-portrait. This “weekly” is a staple of my illustrated journal routine.

I also draw lots of regular portraits. Portraits are my favorite thing. I draw beautiful and quirky and moody people from muse photos I find online or in apps like Museum by Sktchy. I especially love drawing hair.

Then, once a week, I snap a photo of myself and draw a self-portrait. I draw what I see.

Over the last five years, I’ve drawn some particularly terrible views of myself. In the early days, I had such a strong sense of disorientation when I would look at the self-portraits. Who is that? How can that be me? Why does this person look different every week?

I've drawn self-portraits that to this day make me cringe. There is at least one that makes me think of a monkey. One particularly memorable one makes me think of Elton John. (I love Elton John, but I don't really look like Elton John.) I've drawn self-portraits through short hair and long hair and now issues with thinning hair. I've drawn self-portraits through skinny years and heavy years, happy and sad. I’ve learned to accept the creases in my neck. I've watched myself (and maybe my line) age on the page.

The self-portraits are never the same as the portraits I draw of other people. I try not to overthink it. The person I capture on the page may not make me happy (but then I’m capturing someone I think isn’t happy to begin with, even when there is a smile), but what I draw is an effort to capture the me I see in the photo.

I’ve been approaching graphic novel me the same way, thinking of the character I am drawing as “approaching” who I am now.

I happened to be grabbing something from an old folder this week on my computer….and I saw a comic version of me I did several years ago for a downloadable. And then I saw the me from the years-ago rainbow hair comic. Looking back through my feed later, I saw that through the years, comic me has shown up in all sorts of ways.

The comic me images I drew this week (before day 1) all have something very real in common….hair loss. They all look a bit haggard. I even caught myself starting to make some really wonky eye to signify the realities of an eye issue.

It’s like I can’t help myself. If I’m drawing me, it needs to be real.

(If you happened to see my “start here” page, you saw a “this is me” version. That’s a haggard one.)

Stepping back and looking at my digital comic me from a fly-on-the-wall position this week, I was discouraged. Everything struck me as world-weary, heart-sore, lonely. I’m not sure a 100 of these makes sense.

I looked back at rainbow-hair me (2007). She was quirky, but I love her and her spiky hair.

It doesn’t have to look exactly like the me of now, I heard myself whisper.

I don't have to be stuck in reality when it comes to a digital drawing.

I think my history with pen and ink portraits muddies the lines a bit for me. When I draw portraits, I’m tied to true representation. That’s what I’m after. You hear people talk about "capturing a likeness." But forcing myself to work in a simplified way (because the way I draw comics is very simplified and often deliberately flat), I am not necessarily bound by reality.

I could open things up and find (or choose) the character.

Objectively, I know this. I could be a literal unicorn or have rainbow hair, or wings, or a horn on my head as comic me. But it felt like a revelation in the moment.

I’m a bit torn. I’m a stickler for authenticity. I want to be true to who I am. But how true do I have to be? What are the boundaries? What are the limits? If I can be a unicorn, can’t I also go with short hair?

On some level, a character like this should be recognizable. We want there to be something about the character that is familiar, something that is true. Maybe I do need some "eye" mark, bags under the eyes, a fixed scowl. When I drew the kids in my comics through the years, I always tried to keep them recognizable and differentiated. There was often a detail or two to lock them in time (and age) as well. This is how we know who is who when we read a graphic novel.

But we make those decisions. We draw the character that then stands in for the person. The character doesn’t have to be an exact replica.

I wouldn’t fit in the supergirl pajamas now (though I did wear them until they fell apart). Comic me has spread with the years. Comic me has gotten tired. Comic me has lost faith.

Who is comic me really?

Maybe I’m looking for an inner character or an alter ego. Or maybe I’ll just make peace with reality.

I don’t expect the 100 to all look the same. They may look like 100 different people — or not. It may be that there will be variations that are only slightly different — or that change only in color. I am not limiting what will happen because I want to explore my comfort level and also sort out who this person is in digital format.

I need to meet her and understand her.

I don’t have a story to tell, but I need a talking head. For a 100-day focus, this has potential. It feels like a good enough place to start.

Looking Back

Writing this post gave me reason to look back. These self-portraits are all worked into my weekly illustrated journal.

Images from 2019-2020, the “50 before 50” year:

oamyoamy

A post shared by @oamyoamy

Images from 2020-2021

oamyoamy

A post shared by @oamyoamy

I didn’t take time to make grids for the other two years. I really should. The big picture view is really helpful to have.

Self-portraits always jump out at me from weekly grids, like this one:

oamyoamy

A post shared by @oamyoamy

(I’m always the stern one. Even my grandmother, drawn in one of those circles, isn’t as sternly drawn.)

A random weekly spread in process, when I was using an A3 sketchbook.

oamyoamy

A post shared by @oamyoamy

Tracking 100 Days

I’m not part of the “community” that does this project, and this year I see a second community has sprung up on top of the 100 days. I’m sort of just here, me, doing my own thing, practicing my counting skills. Fingers, toes. Repeat four more times.

Checking off a tracker. Coloring in a grid. These things work. Today, I use Notion for tracking projects like this (or ICAD or Inktoportraits). I cleaned my database up today to track 2024. Last year, it tracked stone lanterns.

Sharing and Accountability

I know that the sharing is part of the process of fueling and reinforcing the project for me. Some people don’t need that. I do. It’s an easy self-accountability step. If I make sharing a part of it, then my sense of “responsibility” to the act of posting has its own momentum. I don’t really need a lot of encouragement, but sometimes sharing feels like standing naked in the center of town. The silence these days has been chipping away at me.

I’ve thought about several options for sharing and how I might use this space. I guess I’ll see what happens this week.

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Illustrated Journal Week 7 for 2024

This is a glimpse of part of my pages for Week 7 for Illustrate Your Week 2024. There were birthdays this week, so most of my work is on the pages that come next, where I drew both of my (grown) sons. The pages shown here were largely sketched while watching the Super Bowl last week. The blank spot…. that’s probably where my weekly self-portrait will be tucked later today.

Week 7 pages in illustrated journal. It’s a bit of a color riot this week. A. Cowen

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The Weekly Bits and Pieces

📕 Read-along: Week 7 notes for Sidewalk Oracles (pigeons?)

🎯🖋️ Week 8 prompts for your illustrated journal

⬇️ Recent post on affirmations:

Affirmations and Verbs for Manifesting

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Writers to Read

Here are some posts from other writers that I enjoyed in the last week or so:

• Her Daughter is a What?! (

  Don Boivin
  , Shy Guy Meets the Buddha)

• Luminous Words (

  Grant Snider
  , Incidental Comics)

• Your story matters (

  Rebecca Jones
  , Between)

• Soda With That Slice? (

  Nan Tepper
  , The Next Write Thing)

• Miyazaki's Watercolor Wisdom (

  James Gurney
  )

Made It?

Thank you for reading. As I said last week, check on the people around you. Don’t just look the other way. Ask for and give gentle accountability. Put systems in place that help you meet your goals.

I always invite your comments on the post. You are also welcome to play with any of the following:

• Lantern, whooping crane, or candle

• Mr. Rogers or Pinocchio

• A goal you have for this week

• Today is Day 1 of _______

If you are new here, welcome!

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