Drawing and painting every day is essential to hone your skills and keep your hand/eye coordination in top shape. THe more you draw or paint, the better you become.

Setting a time limit is useful on a couple of counts. It stops you from getting to involved in details in a piece and capture the essential lines and form and makes you paint more loosely if you're painting. It eliminates the cry of 'I don't have time'. Who can't free up 20 minutes a day to draw or paint something?

This little watercolour of a raspberry was done in 20 minutes. Its loose, bright, colourful and fun to do.

So set your timer, find something to draw or paint and go for it. When the 20 minutes is up, you must stop, then post your result.

Have fun!

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Excellent challenge, Jeanette! Bouquets of flowers have always intimidated me, being a "detail" person, rather than an "impression" person, but today I tried the flowers from my husband for Valentine's Day.

I'm going to have to try this exercise and hope that it snaps me out of my rut. It will be a challenge for me because I do have a tendency to get tangled up in the details.

Drawing flowers always scares me Mindy Its not that I 'can't' draw them, its that I don't like to draw them. Perhaps we need another thread for people to draw what they dislike drawing!

You did well, they have form. Its good to go outside our comfort zones and stretch ourselves. And for a 20 minute period, its not a big commitment.

Feorain, time limit challenges make you eliminate detail in many cases and just concentrate on the 'bones' of the subject. Do join in, I think you'd enjoy it.

wow.. this is a great challenge. I'm going to have to try it

I am like you .. I hate drawing flowers and am here to tell you drawing out of my comfort zone with flowers only reassures me that I REALLY hate drawing flowers.. 20 minutes or not..

This is a great idea. I try to draw most days but good to have a commitment and time limit.

Jeanette what wonderful berries. Mindy good work on the flowers.

I'll post something shortly... hopefully

Jacqui

Hi! Thanks for a great challenge!

Here's my 20 minutes:

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It's a flower pot I made when I was a small kid. When I was making it my teacher ceramicist came to me and started talking about a cactus she had at home. She was convinced that nothing would look better in that flower pot than that exact cactus. So she gave a little branch of her cactus to grow my own, in my own pot. It kept silent a few years, I even thought it was dying when suddenly about two or three years ago it started growing and thriving. Sometimes it would noticeably get bigger through one day or even quicker! I promise to draw it one day. I just don't feel like being able to do it justice in 20 minutes after such a long period of not drawing.

Can't wait to see what you all come up with! Have fun!

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I used your twenty minute challenge on my weekly challenge picture.

I was reading your blog recently and you had mentioned the twenty minute paintings.
I thought this was a great idea, so here are the ones I have done.
Not every day, but at least it has gotten me moving again.

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Great sketch Siks. Its full of life which is what sketches are all about. That's a good story to go with it. A bit of history around a drawing always makes it more special.

Paulette, your pieces in watercolour are looking good. I like the looseness of them a lot.

A 20 min sketch with mechanical pencil of a hyacinth bulb I have in the living room. It has a lovely perfume, but I can't draw that.

Oh I will totally have a go at this at some point. My art teacher at college used to constantly complain that my drawing was too stiff, and not free enough.

Though if you are interested there is something similar to this on posemaniacs.com for anatomy practise, which is the thirty second challenge. It generates random images and changes them frequently. You have 30 secionds to draw about 10 figures, or something very close to that. It was very intimadating, and I almost cried, because I barely got anything down on paper. However I'm guessing after you do it for a few days it gets easier each time.

but yes I kinda brought this off topic for a minute sorry about that. I'm loving that raspberry; watercolours are my absolute fave. I would paint in them all the time if I didn't go through white so quickly.

As this was supposed to be done everyday, here's my today's contribution, a dog from the weekly challenge:

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Although I'm not pretty sure about tomorrow. What if I spent ten minutes?

That hyacinth bulb is beautiful Norma. I like it a lot. You've captured a lot of detail in 20 minutes.

Dreamer, sketching every day will guarantee that you improve your drawing skills and speed up your ability to see lines and form. the exercise on posemaniacs is similar to warm up exercises used in life drawing class. Quick poses any where from 10 or 30 seconds up to one or two minutes really makes you concentrate on the lines that represent the form and not detail.

Watercolours are fun. No white allowed!

Siks, such a cute pup. You've got its character there I think. As for timing, its down to you. If you can do something in 10 minutes or have only 5, then do it. The 20 minute challenge usually provides enough time to get some detail in place, but not enough time to overwork a piece.

Great challenge. Here is a friends clownfish peeking out from it's favorite anemone.

Islander: yeah I have only ever done life drawing at college and while they did do thirty second warm-ups it was only ever of one pose, but posemaniacs literally sort of bombards you with many so I ended up a bit like 'well that was dis-heartening' but I will probably have another go at it when I feel ready to.

Also no white? Aw but white makes it easier XD I'll edit this post a lil' later with my addition to this challenge

These are my dogs Magic and Gracie, I used the photo below.
The first picture is maybe 8x10 and I took about 30 min., definitely overworked.
The next is maybe 2 or 3 min. and about an 2in. square. No line drawing on this one.
While its not beautiful, I do like its looseness.

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Jeanette, thank you for your comments.

Now I see that I chose a too hard subject for my 10 minutes. All those reflections on the metallic parts of this box didn't seem to be very complicated... Until I started drawing.

I'm posting this just to keep me going.

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heya I intended to submit this a few days ago but I was having scanner trouble

so my twenty minute painting challenge as of a few days ago; Click to view attachment

Ink of a little bear ornament that I have

Everyone has submitted wonderful sketches this past week! I haven't been able to do a sketch every day, but here's one of my older son watching T.V. today.

What beautiful 10-20 minutes drawings everyone has posted! The challenge is great.
Mine is a modest contribution.

Sveta, those are beautiful. I just love your speed-sketching, especially with the colored ink.

I saw my 2-yr-old on the floor, tearing a flower to pieces, and thought how cute the moment would look on paper... grabbed my sketchbook and pencil, and tried as fast as possible to get the figure sketched out, but MAN still not quick enough. The moment ended and I have no idea where his other arm or leg was positioned to even try to finish it from memory. Speed sketching is definitely an area I need to improve.

My 5-minute sketch:

Jeannette - great idea! I'm with Mindy, I need to improve a lot on speed sketching and capturing the moment. I've learned to rely way too much on photos.

Here are a couple of mine. First one was done today - it's supposed to be a magnolia tree in the midst of pines, but not only am I trying to work on a time limit, I'm trying to work in pastel too. To be honest I'm so frustrated with the results of my attempts with pastels that I'm ready to toss them out a window. I must be a complete dolt - I just don't get it.
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This is one I did with just pen - still within about 20 minutes - I like working in pen or pencil better - the results are actually recognizable.
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This is more of a 20 second sketch - I get the poems and sayings off my favorite Zen website and if I feel moved to do so - I'll add a drawing. It's good meditation. Done on a 3x5 sketch pad very quickly before work starts.
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This is a fun challenge and everyone is posting such great work! Except me. Um.... no one is critiquing these - are they??

I don't think there's critique for these, there shouldn't be for 20-minute sketches, all you can really do in 20 minutes is capture an essence or a basic form. I like the sketch with the pastels, you're doing fine, don't give up! They also seem a little hard to work with for me too.

Here's a 20-minute sketch for today, it's part of a flower bouquet.

Good thema and wonderful drawings, everybody! This is just a comment about everyday practicing. I'm learning chinese brush. A good exercise is to learn calligraphy everyday. This gives you confidence in your strokes when you draw. May be many Chinese ink masterpieces were realized in less than 20 min.
Examples of my exercises (on old newspaper). The pb is getting a firm stroke! Sorry for the quality of the photos:

This looks like fun I have to give it a go, as it is good to draw every day.