100 Days of Art History Jinjins

Origin story

What led to the idea for this project? When I reflect on that question, a bunch of things come up.

_Why self portraits? I was actually also in the middle of another self-imposed art challenge at the time--drawing one quick self portrait per day conveying my inner state. I called it Daily JinPortrait 2018 I figured that this was another kind of self portrait and still counted toward that challenge, so I wouldn't have to abandon one project to do the other. Eventually though, I ended up abandoning the daily self portrait challenge in favor of going deeper with this one. I consider it a worthy onramp to something that turned out way more interesting.

Why art history? I wanted to learn more about art history anyway, and I'd done a few art history parodies in the past that my friends had enjoyed. I thought they'd also get a kick out of these. My 2017 minion-themed parodies of The Mona Lisa and Girl with a Pearl Earring, Las Meninas, and The (non-minion-themed) (Persistence of Memory)[https://twitter.com/jinjinxsun/status/904102479712931841?s=20] are precursors to this whole thing. I also knew that copying paintings was a time-honored way to learn painting skills, so that was a huge bonus.

Why a 100 Day project? This was the 4th 100 day project I'd done. The first one, circa 2015, was 100 Days of Quoted Classics where I hand lettered and decorated quotes from great books I was reading (my favorite was Moby Dick, in case you're wondering.) I also made it partway through 100 Days of 100 Things in 2016, and all the way through 100 Days of JinWeirdness in 2017. Based on those projects, I knew the 100 day format worked for me.

Why digital painting? I'd bought an iPad Pro and Apple Pencil a few months earlier and was excited to play with my new toys. In high school and college I'd drawn digitally using Wacom tablets and it still felt like the most natural way to work to me. I used to draw almost daily on online boards like Tegaki e. But once I graduated, I really fell out of my drawing habit. Getting an iPad was a way back into the game, and the ability to draw from anywhere including the couch, the ease of sharing full fidelity results immediately to social media, the drawing software being free (at the time, Adobe Sketch), and how natural the Apple Pencil felt really unlocked things for me.

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