The short version: Over the past few decades my creative drive, ie the ability to push a project forward to completion, gradually ground to a halt, effectively killing my animation career. Over the years it had inexplicably become mentally harder to draw.
Well, after a lot of research, therapy and finding answers, I've finally begun to get it back.

Smaugust 2019 was a testing-ground for progress made so far. The decision to participate was very last-minute. I'd attempted it the previous year to mixed results and didn't expect much.

To keep things manageable came the following rules:

• You must draw/paint one prompt each day.
• Get as far as you can, but as long as you make something, it counts.
• No working on a previous day's picture. At bedtime, it's done.
• It's okay to do them out of order. If you're not ready for a prompt it can be exchanged for a different day's.

Late on the evening of August 1st I scribbled down this starting picture, hoping to at least get it into the early stages of painting. (Paint, even in small amounts, wakes up the brain in a way drawing alone does not.) To my surprise, the level of finish we captured together defied expectation and set forth an exciting precedent for the month to come. Could I actually create a finished painting for every day of the challenge?
The possibility elecrtified: I was giddy to find out.

For bonus swagger, that little hatchling is a self-portrait. ;}

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100%
Completed on-time, within one day.

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Here's how the prompt system works:

For artists in need of a jumping-off point, it's clearer to work under the authority of an official prompt list. But since there didn't seem to be one this year, all second-guesses were satisfied by combining 2 fan-made lists:
I combined this one with this one.
So for example, this one is "Gatekeeper Hatchling",
the next one would be "Long Forest Dragon"... and so on.

The unforeseen benefit of a compound list is that it creates more interesting prompts with which to stimulate the imagination.