A recap of Peachtober

At the start of the year, when I was organising my calendar I immediately put peachtober in the slot for October. I knew I wanted to participate because for the last 3/4 years I have seen incredible work from the peachtober community. And to top it off I only discovered my path in illustration because of Sha’an D’anthes.

For those who do not know, Peachtober is a daily prompt list by illustrator Sha’an D’anthes. The rules are to create an illustration based off of the word for that particular day.

By creating something each day, I get to practice my skills and try new mediums. At the end of the month I look back at all the pieces I created and I can immediately tell which are my strongest and why. 

I also tried my best to incorporate characters in what I drew. I learnt that drawing characters takes a lot more time for me as it is a skill I have not mastered yet. But I see how adding characters takes my artwork to the next level. I would love to find a balance in the near future where I create characters and a distinct scenes around them. 

Looking back at the work I created I notice that my strongest pieces are those that tell a story. Where the drawing is flat, but filled with detail, such as day 15: Shell and day 30 Pet. 

By going through this process of daily creations I got a better understanding of what works and what doesn’t work for me. For instance I discovered that scanning in my work makes it loose depth, so what I found works best instead is photographing it and adding additional details digitally. 

Another thing I noticed was that my ideas were very literal in the beginning, and I need to learn to think a bit more outside the box. Using the hashtag peachtober22 to evaluate what I created was a better use of my time than comparing myself to others and complaining I am not as good as them. 

One technique that I really enjoyed was painting backgrounds and then building up the illustration from back to front like what I did for day 28 – PLANT

Overall I am beyond proud of myself for accomplishing this tedious task. I would have not been able to complete it if I did not prepare for it. I started planning out and sketching most of the pieces in September and that is why I managed to complete it. 

I can’t wait to join again next year and see what else I create! 

Tell me what piece was your favourite in the comments below!