And so, I’ve done it. 30 Days of ShadowDraw, the app that lets you follow a sketch as it comes to life and practice along with it. I really enjoyed this challenge, getting the most use out of my Apple Pencil possibly ever, and feeling like I was really getting into it by the end. But even with all that, I still don’t feel like I can ever actually be a good artist. The only thing that I felt was improving as I went along was my brushstrokes, getting a slightly steadier hand, and understanding the concept of that cross you draw on the oval of a face to place the eyes.

But if you plonked me down with paper and pen now, I don’t think I’d be able to draw anything good.

Of course I never really thought I was suddenly going to become an artist or anything, and what the challenge was really about was taking time out to do something for 10-15 minutes that was creative and relaxing in equal measure. And on that front, it was very successful. It’s been a busy few weeks, and the wider world never seems to get any less doom and gloom, so to shut off and just put pencil to iPad screen was really quite nice.

I might have to eye up a future challenge that actually hits the building blocks of drawing to see if that has any effect, but for now, I’m happy to have 30 days of saved shadow drawings in the vault, and I’m ready to move on to the next challenge.