Drawlloween: Daily Drawing Prompts
This year, we decided to participate in an Instagram daily drawing challenge around one of our favorite holidays: Halloween. My son does not have his own account, but I maintain two: one for my artwork, and one for our homeschooling adventures. I posted our daily photos on my own art account, with occasional updates on our homeschooling one.
I’m proud of my 10-year-old for honoring his commitment to complete this 31-day challenge, and missing only a few prompts. This was more than drawing Halloween-themed pieces. This was about making a promise to one’s self, and sticking to that promise. It was about deadlines and constraints, both of which could produce amazing results when imposed upon the creative brain. It was about a community of artists supporting each other. It was about finding awe and inspiration from what others create. These are quite important life skills for a child (and adult) to learn.
Below are some of my favorite pieces from this year’s drawlloween challenge.
Palette:
Day 4. Mushroom
My 10yo drew an amazing mushroom tree. I opted for blue mushrooms, which were surprisingly fun to paint.
Day 6. Ghost
My mind was BLOWN when I saw his ghost drawing. The background, the concept… it was just amazing. Proud mama here. I went with origami ghosts coming out of a book. My 10yo posed for this painting, and his expression was on point!
Day 14. Skeleton
He drew an entire SKELETON PARTY. I could barely draw one skeleton.
Day 22. Pumpkin
A pumpkin monster with pumpkin eyes, pumpkin eyebrows, pumpkin nose, pumpkin mouth, pumpkin teeth…! Seriously. Impressive. I went with an obvious choice: a pumpkin trick-or-treat bag. But my witch concept was pretty cute. Right?
Day 23. Monster
My 10yo wanted to try drawing on black paper with white soft-core pencil, and he nailed it. I think it works really well with his style of drawing. My own piece is an updated version of an older painting I made of my boys battling monster trees.
Day 30. Bride
I’m especially proud of this (and the last) piece because my 10yo went out of his comfort zone. He is intimidated by drawing people, yet he went ahead and drew the corpse bride… and nailed it!
31. Frankenstein
For our final piece, we decided to do a collaboration. My 10yo did the pencil sketch, using Steve Miller and Bryan Baugh’s Scared!: How to Draw Fantastic Horror Comic Characters for reference, and I inked and colored the piece digitally.
And here are all the pieces that my 10-year-old made for this year. Maybe we will do it again next year.
Palette: