Challenge trio update

It is day 37 of the 100daysprojectscotland art challenge, so whilst not quite in the home straight, it’s good to be a third complete.

This time, knowing how drawing and painting for 100 consecutive days can be a tad stressful, I have cut myself a bit more slack and somewhat loosened my rules around what can be included . The theme remains flowers, but by weaving in printing, or drawing onto prints I made earlier – in true Blue Peter style – it has made it enjoyable while staying true to the spirit of the endeavour.

I suppose the point of committing to create art daily for 100 days is to provide you with a focus for trying new things and experimenting. Last year when I did this, I tied myself up in knots of perfection ( or more accurately my own interpretation of what I thought good enough to share). This year I am more relaxed and happy to share art that is not quite the way I hoped it would turn out, and happier to include experiments and those efforts where my tendency to overwork ends up spoiling the earlier attempt.

I am drawing many of the same flowers I painted last year, and noticing how our warm Spring has made a big difference to what is in the garden when. Our welcome but unusually warm May meant the roses thrived, but the shrub Spirea ( bridal veil) flowered very briefly and turned brown very quickly.

My second challenge, to complete the Couch to 5k run programme is very close to the finishing line with, as I write this, only 2 more 30 min runs to do until I graduate.

It has taken me five years and four attempts to finish this 9 week run programme but this time I know I will get to the end.

My earlier attempts to do this programme ( following a period away from running) were hijacked partially by injury but more than aching knees – by me struggling to come to terms with having to relearn how to run, and a feeling of loss for the old me who used to run every weekend, who always packed trainers on travel trips, and had once run a marathon.

Running is and always will be mostly about mind over matter, altho my creaky old bones do take longer these days to recover, and I have to include strength work to avoid injury.

This time, I understand that while it is good to have a memory of past running adventures to turn to, it’s better to be in the moment and just follow the plan. The penny dropped at week 7 when I was able to run without stopping ( and by slowing down) for 25 minutes and not feeling like I might collapse.

Mostly I am looking forward to ticking this off so I can go back to running the way I enjoy – stopping to take pictures, chatting with friends but still feeling so much better after than before the run.

The last of the challenges that make up the trio was to get back into writing this blog consistently, which given this is only the second post in two months is just stuttering along rather than meeting the objectives.

As a by product to the 100 day art challenge, I have started sharing the art on Substack as notes – partially to try and fathom the platform although as yet I have not written an actual Substack newsletter. What I have found is a newish community, lots of interesting voices and some lovely people.

Drawing, running and writing, maybe one day it will all come together.

The road to perfection is a long and wiggly one, but the journey is fun, and as the Meat Loaf song says ; Two Out of Three Ain’t Bad.