The Simplest Things challenge 2025

I have just finished this little challenge, run by Amy Maricle of Mindful Art Studio.  This little accordion/concertina journal is three inches x three inches (ish). Amy also does the Inchie Challenge, which I have taken part in before, but that is twelve days.

Amy sends an email with a prompt each day for five days and also an example of what she drew for the prompt.  The idea is to do a simple thing - a mark, a line, a dot etc. each of those five days and then continue to draw in a mindful way after the challenge ends. (To this end, Amy has a Slow Drawing lesson every Wednesday and I absolutely love Slow Drawing. Minimal materials and taking your time while drawing for an hour, including a short meditation to calm you down and help you to focus on the drawing.)

So, here's what I did.  These squares are watercolour card and I use a Lamy Safari fountain pen with an extra fine nib and De Attramentis document ink.   This is Closer.

Here's Squiggle, using a brush and watercolour.

Dots is my favourite - simple but effective, using a brush and watercolour again.

Branching using a pen and ink.

Smash, which was suggested by Chris. I was thinking along the lines of smashing watercolour onto a square or smashing the pieces together.  I like this idea better!  All these patterns are simple - just lines or dots. When you start to repeat the lines or dots, they become interesting patterns.

A really simple and fun little challenge.