Our Planet Week 2025
Over the past few years I’ve really enjoyed taking part in a variety of drawing challenges on Instagram - I find they’re a great way to work, to really expand your skillset, working to prompts that you may not necessarily set yourself and even in colour palettes that may not be your go to. And at the end you have a lovely little body of work that you can use for products or even in your portfolio.
This year I came across the ‘Our Planet Week’ drawing challenge, which coincides with Earth Day (April 22nd) and immediately felt drawn to it’s message and it’s prompts. If you have been following me for a while you will know how passionate I am about the environment and our need to protect and preserve it. I’ve never really translated my feelings about the climate crisis, or how deeply I feel for nature, through my artwork and this felt like a way to dip my toes into a bit of ‘artivisim’.
Over the course of 8 days there were 5 prompts to create artwork in response to. These were:
Touch the Ground
Feel the Air
Hear the Ocean
See the Wild
Go Beyond
I decided from the start that I wanted these designs to make a uniform set and so to achieve that the designs were to be applied to the same grid layout with the same colour palette; black and off white. Now, I know some people would not necessarily think these tones are the true colours of nature, especially when the natural world is so gloriously vibrant and rich in tones, textures and colour. But, I wanted the designs to all carry the same weight - An illustration related to the air was just as important as an illustration about the ocean etc.
And along the way on the journey, as well as being able to share my work and connect with others in a way I didn’t expect, I also got to see the beautiful creativity of other artists who had taken part. I was particularly taken with the work of Asia Orlando, Martina Stuhlberger and Sarah Von Rickenbach who were but a few of the drawing challenge hosts but loved seeing all the contributions from artists all over the world. It’s incredible how each persons interpretation of a prompt can vary so greatly and have no many different ideas!
So without further ado, I would love to share my illustrations for the Our Planet Week 2025 drawing challenge!
The response to this collection on Instagram was so huge (I can’t thank my community enough for their continued and ongoing kind words and support!) that I decided to offer a selection of the designs as prints. You can find these in my shop available in A5, A4 and A3, all printed from my home studio in Nottingham on recycled material.
I would love to know what you think of my responses to the prompts given, and which were your favourite?
