Artist Johanna Spinks let the world into her Ventura studio daily embarking on a very public drawing challenge to draw no matter what for 365 days straight. That she did every day in 2010, through stomach flu, migraines, work travel and the daily ups and downs of an artist's life, all in front of public eyes.

The world tuned into to watch via a lively social media campaign Spinks decided to run to showcase the challenge on a blog and public Facebook page devoted to it. People started posting and emailing her from all over the world to show support and most of all became curious. Would Spinks fail? What would she draw, complain or rejoice about today? Many told Spinks she had inspired them to start their own personal art challenges.

HARDBACK GOLD EDITION, 12" x 12", $150, incl. tax, shipping, and original drawing. Contact Johanna. Foreword by Everett Raymond Kinstler: "Every serious artist knows that drawing is the grammar and gut of good painting. It’s partly a matter of learning what to leave out. Johanna Spinks was stimulated to challenge herself to do a drawing a day for one year. Share with me her passion and talent as she explores line and color on a flat surface, creating a two-dimensional journey into a world of faces, figures, objects, and places, all filled with joy, movement, and Jo’s unique personality."

Spinks' daily drawings done during 2010 will now be featured in a solo show "365 Days of Drawing By Johanna Spinks" opening Friday April 1st at The Vita Art Center in Ventura.

"No-one knows how many days there are in a year until you do something every day, even if you don't want to, " says Spinks whose focus in art is primarily classical oil portraiture. Spinks was inspired to do the challenge after seeing the movie "Julie and Julia", about a young chef who embarks on a public cooking challenge.

"I asked myself what was the one thing I could do everyday that would make a difference to what I do. And it was drawing. The repeated daily discipline of flexing the drawing muscle. I found it to be priceless."

The commitment was for half an hour a day with no cheating but more often than not it was for far longer that she drew: "The drawing challenge being so public made me raise my game. Who wants to post not so good drawings for everyone to see and comment on. Sometimes I would spend three hours on a drawing a day. And the time spent researching what I was going to draw each day that would be of interest to not only myself to do but the people following the challenge, was really immense."

Being so public was not always easy: "When I started the year of drawing, I was kinda giddy with novelty aspect of posting it all. It was fun to see the challenge build and people start to really follow it and wait for the drawings each day. But there were times later in the year when I wanted to crawl in a corner and shut it all off feeling I was revealing too much of my studio art life but I had come too far and was learning about my art in leaps and bounds. It was a very personal, yet extremely public, extraordinary art year of my life. People have since told me they really miss my challenge now. I kinda miss it too."

See pictures from the exhibition...