A year ago, Frankie O’Toole hated digital drawing.
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After doing one digital drawing each day for the past 365, she’s discovered the power in the medium.
Now, she’s showing them to Bendigo, with a week long exhibition at Dudley House.
This is not the first time O’Toole has challenged herself to produce one drawing a day for a full year.
The first was in 2016. An art teacher by trade, O’Toole found she wasn’t using her artistic skills. So, she challenged herself to draw every day.
This time, it was a way of keeping sane.
With a five month old baby, who was a poor sleeper, O’Toole needed something to keep her sane.
“The first one was to get myself back into the arts, the second was probably to expand myself in the arts a bit, but also to stay sane,” she said.
“I needed something to keep me, feeling like I’m achieving every day, having a little success.”
O’Toole chose to do digital drawings this time round, to challenge herself to expand her skills.
“I’m just desperately scared of anything digital,” O’Toole said.
“I don’t have a lot of skills in that area, so I thought well, I might as well challenge myself, so instead of just doing drawing this time round it was digital drawing.”
So in July 2017, O’Toole jumped online, downloaded the most basic drawing app available, and started drawing.
Out of it, she has produced 365 beautiful digital images.
She drew the vibrantly coloured drawings on an ancient tablet, often on the couch at around 11pm, each in less than an hour.
There is no overriding theme to the subjects, the drawings show whatever happened to inspire O’Toole on that particular day.
The exhibition includes a whole series on Bendigo,O’Toole’s home for 20 years.
“I kind of go on tangents… and I get bored so I change it up,” she said.
“Really any image that’s really image to look at and I get excited by, I want to draw.”
Despite the bustle of toddler-care, O’Toole and achieved her goal of a digital drawing each day.
She couldn’t have done it without her supporters, including family, friends and social media.
Posting an image each day on social media kept her honest, she said.
O’Toole is proud of what she has achieved, and the skills in digital illustration she has developed.
“I’ve really shocked myself this time, and I’m just really intensely proud of what I’ve created,” she said.
“Once you get to the end, around the 300 mark, the stuff that you’re doing, all the skills that you’ve developed throughout, it starts to get really exciting.
- Exhibition open July 18-25, Dudley House, 10am-4pm, opening night Saturday July 21, all welcome