A few months ago, as I was working my way through Sari Shryack’s “Not Sorry Art School’s” phenomenal course and particularly the portraits module, I decided to do the 100 heads challenge in order to improve my skill in drawing heads faster. I also wanted to finally force myself to start a challenge, any kind of challenge, as I’ve been thing about it for a while. As much as I love my sketchbook as a safe place to experiment and make mistakes, I find that I tend to not stick with a consistent practice as often as I should. So I thought a challenge would not only compel me to open my sketchbook everyday, but posting my progress on social media would also hold me accountable. Plus as I was doing Not Sorry Art School’s portraits course, I thought there must be a technical almost scientific method to correctly render facial proportions. That led me to research (and by research I mean watching countless YouTube tutorials) the Loomis method, which then inevitably led me to the 100 heads challenge.

The 100 heads challenge was started years ago by Ahmed Al Doori, a talented artist, on his YouTube channel. The idea is to draw 100 heads in 10 days, so 10 heads a day, as a way to drastically improve portraiture skills. Now the whole point of this challenge, given the short time frame, is speed, and to that end, Ahmed Al Doori took a lot of the guesswork and finding reference images by providing a Pinterest board of royalty free images. The short time frame is meant to avoid overworking and getting stuck on one head for too long and just to keep going as progress will occur with repetition. Over the years, artists have tailored this challenge to their own skill level, time constraints and preferecnes. For example, some artists have dispensed with this Pinterest board altogether and chosen their own images, others have used all sorts of meduims, not just pencils, but pen and ink, watercolor and goauche or graphite and oil. Many have found the strict timeline of 10 heads a day too stringent and decided to do the challenge in their own time, some did a few heads a day, some stuck to the timeline, some did one a day and many artists actually took months, sometimes a whole year to complete the challenge.

I decided to do the challenge in my own time (I’d say it took me around a month and a half to complete) and for the most part, I used my own reference images. Now I’ve drawn portraits before but I still found them intimidating. But my experience with this challenge nearly broke me!! I broke up the challenge into themes so that every 10 heads would have a theme. Now I knew going into this challenge that it would, well challenge me, but I underestimated the impact that it would have on me. I thought that by the end of it that not only would my portrait drawing skills dramatically improve but that it would dramatically cure my perfectionism disease. So did that happen? Well, yes and no. I already had a head start with the first few portraits that I had already drawn before starting this challenge and they dictated the theme for the first 10 heads, which was portraits of prominent Palestinians, (with the exception of Elizabeth Moss as June Osborne in “The Handmaid’s Tale”). It took me good week or even 10 days to finish the first 10, because aside from the first 3 that I already had done in wax pastels, the others I had done in pencil and then went back over them in tombow dual brush pen. I had a chronic case of perfectionism which meant that even though I used the Loomis method, I still got the proportions wrong and would go back and erase and redo each one. But the perfectionism bug stayed with me as I progressed. That’s not to say that I didnt like some of the portraits, but I noticed the longer I worked on each head the less excited I was to continue. I kept pushing on though, first sketching in pencil and then going over some of them in pen and ink. Towards the end I was still getting frustrated because I was noticing how other artists improved their skills while I was still getting some proportions wrong. And I noticed how my mood that day was dependent on whether I got the batch of heads right or wrong. The whole process was replete with frustration and disappointment, but I think that was mostly to do with my approach to it, not the challenge itself. After the first few dozens of heads which I did with the Loomis method, I decided to just draw using shapes and blocks and then refine them later. That helped a lot. Also, I realized I was much more concerned with content that I was making out of this process for social media rather than focusing on the challenge, that is, I wanted my heads to be perfect, in order to validate the frankly inexcusable amount of time I spent on them. Which of course, engendered, more feelings of inadequacy which led to chronic perfectionism. I would go back and erase a million times, and then if I didn;t like the pencil sketch I would go over them in ink. But as for the positives, I finally finished the challenge, I am less intimidated by heads now or even portraits. Do I want to look at, let alone, try drawing another portrait for a while? Absolutely not, but I do want to later on experiment with skin tones. I noticed a slight improvement in my drawing skills and an ease as well when sketching quickly using lines and shapes rather than rounded edges. I still struggle with lips and eyes, but I’m less intimated by noses now. Did I capture the exact likeness of each portrait? Of course not, I dispensed with that idea early on in the challenge and decided to focus on the main features that stood out to me. If some of the heads turned out a bit cartoonish or more like a caricature than an accurately rendered portrait. So be it. I did not want to capture likeness, I wanted to get proportions right and capture the outstanding features in the face.

Heads #1-10: Prominent Palestinians:

1- Hind Rajab- Palestinian girl who was trapped in a car with her dead relatives for days in Gaza and then shot at with 355 bullets and killed by “Israel”. Done with Caran D’Ache Neocolor water soluble wax pastels

2- June Osborne from “The Handmaid’s Tale” (don’t mind that, I drew her before this challenge started and decided to just include it in the first 10 heads). Done with Caran D’Ache Neocolor water soluble wax pastels

3- Lama Jamous - 9 year old Palestinian journalist, Gaza’s youngest journalist, documenting the plight of children during the genocide. Done in pencil

4- Sham Abu Shaqfa- Palestinian toddler who was brought in with shell shock after an “Israel” bombed her house. Done with Caran D’Ache Neocolor water soluble wax pastels

5- Young Palestinian boy also being treated for shock. Done with Caran D’Ache Neocolor water soluble wax pastels

6- Reem (Soul of the soul)- Palestinian girl who was killed in an “Israeli” airstrike and whose grandfather said was the soul of his soul as he was preparing her for burial. Done in pencil and brush pen.

7- Khaled Nabhan - Palestinian man, grandfather to Reem, whose video of him preparing his granddaughter for burial and embracing her and calling the soul of his soul went viral. A year later he was also killed in an “Israeli” airstrike. Done in pencil and brush pen.

8- Bisan Owda- young Palestinian journalist, activist and filmmaker who won awards for her documentation of her experiences during the Gaza war. Done in pencil and dual brush pen.

9- Anas Al Sharif - Palestinian journalist with Al Jazeera, recently killed in an “Israeli” airstrike. Done in pencil and brush pen.

10- Ismail Haniyeh - Political leader of Hamas, killed last year in an “Israeli” airstrike in Iran. Done in brush pen.

For heads 11-20, I did Native American women. I used reference images from Pinterest. All were done using pencil and india ink. I enjoyed this category simply because I think Native American women are so beautiful and I enjoyed using India ink because it was impossible to be too precious or tight with such a flowy medium.

Heads 21-30: Black women. This one was a bit difficult. I re-did a lot of them and I really messed up a couple of them. All done using pencil, india ink and brush pen

Heads 31-40: Favorite authors or authors whose books have inspired me. I actually quite enjoyed this one, not just because of the subject matter, but because I worked relatively fast and found most of the heads not as challenging as others. I also kept the pen strokes to a minimum, simply blocking in the shadows. All done in pencil and brush pen. #31: Arundhati Roy, #32: Elif Shafak, #33: Margaret Atwood, #34: Michael Ondaatje, #35: Barbara Kingsolver, #36: Richard Powers, #37: Ocean Vuong, #38: Paul Lynch, #39: Elizabeth Gilbert, #40: Jeff Vandermeer

Heads 41-50: This one went pretty smoothly. I kept it simple with the pencil sketch and then dual brush pen on top. I used some of the reference images from Ahmed Al Doori’s Pinterest board.

Heads 51-60: This category was mostly done from reference images from Ahmed Al Doori’s Pinterest board. I did those in pencil because I wanted to work on shading more and it would be easier to do shading if I can erase and correct my marks, as opposed to the permanency of pen and ink.

Heads 61-70: Expressive faces. I wanted to experiment with expressions. However, this has got to be my worst category yet. I honestly didn’t enjoy this one and I messed up more of them that I got right. Done in pencil and brush pen

Heads 71-80: Old faces. I did those in pencil. Strangely enough, I found this category easier than others because I could just squiggle a few lines and that would translate as just wrinkles on the face.

Heads 81-90: Young children. This category was a bit difficult as I felt that I had to be careful with excessive shading and lines since young faces have smoother skin

Heads 91-100: This category was mostly statues or structural faces. I used reference images from Ahmed Al Doori’s Pinterest board. Again not my favorite category but I was finally done with this challenge. I did notice an ease and a swiftness with my pencil strokes especially when I used lines and general block shapes as proopsed to the Loomis method. Done in pencil.