13 Sep On Art Challenges

“Action is the foundational key to all success.”

-Pablo Picasso

I’ve written about how I began painting in my living room when my kids were babies.

So I thought I’d talk about another aspect of how I started…sharing my work and doing art challenges through social media.⠀
⠀I never went to art school, so I’m not sure, but even 15 years ago i’m guessing the idea of sharing your work via computer networking was pretty out there. A LOT has changed. When I started painting again, after a decade long hiatus, it was 2010. I began sharing what I created on Facebook, which was only a few years old at that point.

At the time, talking about your work on social seemed braggy at best, but I knew I had to share in order to be seen.

And well,  it was working. I started selling pieces.

I could easily communicate to many people in one post that I had opened an Etsy shop. I remember thinking how lucky I am to be a visual artist at this time in history (I still say this daily by the way). How amazing was it that a housebound mother with young children in the dead-of-winter-Chicago could sell her artwork to a customer in New Zealand with a click of a button?

Crazy, right?⠀
⠀I didn’t join Instagram until 2013….but when I did I think a shift happened.

Introduce… the Art Challenge.

I started following artists I admired and fell in with a group of creative people who ran regular instagram challenges…Foliophoto, Creative Unblock, Wes Anderson inspired.

I saw Instagram as a tool for creativity and connection.⠀
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The drawing above of my daughter, Maeve, is from my own personal #365project where I sketched for every day of 2014. I still go back to these drawings for inspiration…the seeds of my abstracts are born here. Doing challenges gives the structure (hello wonderful prompts from @joannehawker) and community to create movement in your art practice.

I’ve met so many wonderful artists and makers that I count as my friends to this day. ⠀

I recently participated in the 2021 #100daychallenge this past April and created 100 mini abstract paintings in acrylic and watercolor on paper.

I’ve incorporated doing challenges into my art practice for life. It’s incredibly rewarding. You become prolific.

You get better…you get closer to, if not exceed, your 10,000 hours, as Malcolm Gladwell would say.

And it’s fun!

Do you participate in art challenges? The course I am currently working on is like one big one…a month of daily showing up for your art practice. Find out more about that course here.

And have an inspired week!