A Beginning: 100 Days of Banners

A Gentle Challenge

2025 was a year of many cat drawings, which fulfilled my biggest goal set in December 2024. By November I was addicted to drawing from photographs, which is not something I have ever tended toward. My drawings were split between several sketchbooks, so it would be hard for me to prove this as fact, but I am almost certain that I drew a cat (or other floofy baby) a day for 30 days continuously.

The zine fest came up in November so I got distracted preparing for that, and then in December I was devoted to Holiday gift drawings and preparing for the Meetup at the Music and Gaming Festival I hosted at the beginning of January. So I got side tracked, that's life!

Drawing Consistently and Posting to Social Media

For years I drew everyday, and have occasionally had a hiatus here or there - sometimes lasting over a month. Typically my minimum daily art is a cartoon self portrait as that counts as a journal entry in my book. To draw cats everyday I could was a fun goal last year, and I tried but without a set timeline. This time I am following the idea of a 100 Day Challenge as popularized by https://www.the100dayproject.org/ - their idea is that you also post daily to social media.

I really drew more consistently once I did start posting everyday (ish) because there was accountability in it and dopamine from a few likes here and there. It is an easy way to see all of your drawings in one timeline if that's all or most of what you post there. I did find that posting to social media took away from my drawing time, so I took a break from doing so for January. During that time away from the apps it was easier to use my short breaks and part of my lunches at work to draw, usually my bowl of oatmeal or a loose doodle of what I wanted to draw next time I had an hour or more to focus on refinement.

Phone Woes

I still only want to post to Instagram from my laptop and not my phone because it is so addictive to scroll so much art that is catered to my specific preferences. I have long had issues with Instagram and took many years off after an already late adoption in 2019. I even had a flip phone until 2020, but used a hand-me-down smart phone on wifi starting in 2019 so that I could use Instagram and podcasts. 

After a couple years of regular Instagram use I started to notice I would get a sick feeling from scrolling art. It seemed to be overwhelming my synapses and part of the nausea was the in rush of comparison to others with better mental or physical health. Today was a snow day for me and I have been using my time to dumb down my smart phone with a Minimalist launcher which is so far very cool. I also found AntennaPod, an open-source and ad-free podcast player to finally replace the dreaded Spotify. I am generally trying to go back to a time when I was an avid laptop user and when I drew more consistently in little breaks which have more recently been filled with doom scrolling.

The 100 Day Art Challenge!

And so with less phone time I have more brain space and time for my current 100 Day Art Challenge! I officially started yesterday, February 1, 2026. My focus will be banners, with a sub-focus on learning more about hand lettering. In my last zine, CAT NiP, I really wanted to hand letter the writing since the wording was so concise. However, when I tried a sample it quickly became apparent I did not have time to finish it before the upcoming Zine Fest. I would love to be able to hand letter my next zine!

I have long loved flags - and banners in particular. Banners are one of those old-school doodles you can make as simple or complicated as you want. Illustrated banners have history as far back as Medieval Manuscripts, ever my inspiration, and more recently they are still popular in American Traditional tattoo designs. In Medieval Manuscripts there were banners with speech written on them, projecting from illustrated people - these were proto speech bubbles (aka word balloons in comics)! This is my main inspiration with this project, but my drawing style is heavily informed by the more graphic style of American Traditional tattoos rather than the carefully detailed Medieval illustrations.

Readable Protest Designs

It is cartoons I am funneling my love of banners through for this challenge. I am keeping an open mind as to what constitutes a cartoon, so it doesn't *have* to be ultra simplified and highly graphic, but I am exploring designs that might be fit for protest posters or stickers. In one word, I am trying for "Readable" designs. And as for protest posters, yes I am tending my banners' written words toward protest chants and quotes from Leftist leaders who have guidance to offer us in this Extra Disturbing Time.

Cats Cats Cats

I would also like to incorporate cats into as many of these illustrations as is appropriate, because why not. Back during the Summer I had an idea for a zine of cat comics where the cats were doing cat things but had banner thoughts of the most Leftist activists. Like, come for the cats but stay to read the text! So I'm still working on that, so far I haven't felt successful in my attempts per se.

Conclusion

To bring this long post to a close, I will return to the idea of a Gentle Challenge. One cool thing about a "100 Day" challenge is that, well, those days don't necessarily have to be contiguous. If you miss a day or two, just pick up where you left off and keep going. Don't count the missed days, just add that many to the original end date goal. That's my kind of challenge. I can't always make art. And some days I will draw something and then use the next day to color in the design instead of making a new one. Each day that I work on the project still counts for a day in my world, even if I'm not creating from scratch! The project is 100 Days after all, not 100 Banners. (But there's an idea...)

Hopefully I will write again sooner than two months from now, because I would really prefer to focus my self expression on my own site rather than on one of the social platforms that limit how much I can write.

Fair Winds,

Bird