Yearly – they happen all year round: – kick in the creatives: they have several monthly challenges going on and some year round. I’ve participated in many of their monthly and also the 365 yearly challenge so far. It mostly happens on IG and they have their podcast as well. You can get the newsletter with prompts and reference photos that you can use (but you don’t have to). They also have 15 minutes challenges for the busiest of artists where you shouldn’t spend more than 15 minutes (it could be less though) on your project every day. Here you can find their list of art challenges month by month. –doodlewash: another site with monthly challenges where you get prompts every month and draw and colour something using watercolours. I’ve participated in the challenge but didn’t always use the prompts. I love their world watercolour month challenge happening in July! – 64 million artists: they have tons of different challenges throughout the year, community based, many artists give ideas what to do each day or week and how to challenge yourself. –52 weeks inktober: weekly prompts for the inktober lovers so they have something to do while waiting for another october;). I haven’t done this challenge but I do inktober every year. – creative every day: I haven’t participated yet but thought someone might like a lesser known challenge:) – 100 day project: you can start any day of the year but they do have an official day to create the momentum for people who’d like to create together – it usually starts in spring
From my 100 day project last year.
If this is too much of a commitment for you, you can go for some quicker challenges that only last for a week or two: – 100 heads in 10 days: I haven’t tried but I want to:) he’s a good teacher and even provides references! – 10 day challenge: same length, designed for school kids and could be useful for art teachers – list of weekly art challenges – more weeklyart challenges
Folk tale week consists of illustrations based on folk tales.
If a week is still too much for your current life style, there are some one time art challenges, too: – Draw this again: you take an old artwork of yours and draw it again to see your progress – Draw this in your style: you draw or paint an artwork from the original creator – but in your own style. It is fun to see different iterations of the same thing – they come up totally unrecognizable sometimes!
There are many art challenges (a big fat list coming up your way on Tuesday) – and now is the time when we usually have more time for art on dark evenings than in the summer or spring when we’re outside most of the day. So let’s make use of it – and develop a habit that will bring more happiness into our life:). Challenges are a great motivator to keep persisting. But how to choose the right one?
I mermaid that was part of inktober but it could very well be drawn for mermay (my favourite challenge).
There are some key elements that we can look up when we are choosing the challenge that is suitable for us: – the length: probably the most important; I would probably advise anyone who has never done any challenge whatsoever to start with something small – like a week long challenge or the one when you do one thing a week (fairy tale week for example). If you are very busy, start with something simple. – the complexity: how much time will it take you to complete each piece? If you are starting out, it’s a good idea to start with something quick. Kickinthecreatives even have “quick-kick” 15 minutes challenges every month for that exact reason – so you only need to invest 15 minutes a day or less. – the preparation: some people like to prepare sketches in advance. Some look at the prompt that morning, figure out what they will draw during the day and do everything in the evening. Some people just sit down and draw according to the prompt. Some people don’t use prompts. I’ve tried all of the above and every system has its advantages. Think about how you prefer to work so it is easiest for you to stick to the challenge. – the materials: no matter what you chose, it will make your life much easier if you have the materials for the chosen challenge in a designated spot for while the challenge is ongoing. Therefor it’s easiest to chose a challenge that you have materials for already. Many people choose challenges to get to know particular materials that they just got or rediscovered in their stash and want to make the best use of of it. I highly recommend that kind of choice – you will have much more fun with your materials if you take the time to get to know them and challenges are great for that! You might have gotten some new materials under the Christmas tree this year – give them a ride! – the theme: for the first few challenges I’d go with a theme you really like or really want to improve in (I love mermaids so I take part in mermay every year, I want to improve in my inking so I take part in iktober every year). Later when you have a few challenges under your belt, do expand and choose something really challenging if you’d like to push out of your comfort zone (I love colour but I’ve done black and white inktober, I really am not into machinery and I’ve done march of robots). There’s always something fun coming out of those situations! But it could be too much from the get go. Try a theme, really close to your heart first;)
Another one from this years inktober but it could be done for fairy tale week as well.
Of course, you don’t need challenges to do art consistently – you can art journal, nature journal, bullet journal, take a book and follow it from cover to cover, sign into a class (online or real life), take part in an art study group, attend life drawing classes,… This is just one of the ways to make ourselves do more art – but it’s a fun one and there are quite some very interesting challenges out there – more about them on Tuesday, so subscribe for more:).
Folk tale week is already running so I thought I might provide you with some resources for folk stories that I found particularly useful or interesting:)
Illustration of the story – George, the fool, our national folk story
Folklore and Mythology from around the world grouped by theme (in alphabetical order of the themes) – a giant resource!
Myths and legends podcast – this is their website but you can listen to them almost everywhere. What I particularly like about this podcast is the type of the stories and the humorous inserts from the podcasters – it’s very much worth listening to – I highly recommend it :).
Another collection of folk tales, not as massive as the first but it has the covers from book for every tale. You can also find other stories there.
And if you’d like to read our folk tales in Slovene you can find them here. Which folk tale is your favourite? I’d love to know!
For those of you who would like to dip your toe into art challenges but are a bit overwhelmed by the monthly challenges or simply can’t find the time 30 days in a row to indulge in some art (although if you can, I highly recommend it;) – a weekly challenge might be just the right thing for you:).
This was done during Inktober – can’t wait to make some art inspired by folk tales though!
This one I’ve been eyeing for two years already – the first year I saw it I was already too late, the next I didn’t know when it starts but this year I’m ready and to pay it forward I’m telling you as well:). No need to do it but if you want to – you’ve heard it in time – folk tale week starts next week – from 14th till 20th November.
Folk tales can be interpreted as you want and the contributing artists are so very inspiring!
The rules are simple: make art inspired by folk tales and these prompts: 14. 11. fool 15. 11. tree 16. 11. stars 17. 11. rebel 18. 11. costume 19. 11. potion 20. 11. victory See you in folk tale week! I hope you’ll join me for this adventure – by drawing or cheering:).
Last week we’ve packed our art bag for vacation and now it’s time to use it! What are the benefits and caveats of creating at the seaside? Well, we usually don’t have the whole art room with us at the seaside. We are very limited in our supplies – but we’ve taken care of that when we packed. Now let’s try to get the best out of the supplies we took with us!
Painting at the beach… Just drop your little art bag into the big beach bag and you’re all set! *Don’t copy my Quasimodo-hunched pose, though 😀
If you’ve packed a small little art journal and a set of fine liners and watercolours, you’re pretty much set and can follow along exactly with the steps I took in my travelling journal but even if you have different supplies you can still do this – you will just modify the colouring with your chosen materials and use different writing tool. So you can do this with a pencil or ballpoint pen and a small set of coloured pencils as well.
A pencil and a couple of fine liners and you can journal about all your holiday days in your art journal.
If you didn’t pack a travelling journal you will have to find other surfaces to make art on. But that can always be done! Even if you have nothing you might find a chipped-off leaf of a succulent and draw with it on stones. Get creative;). I’ll show you a few ideas as we go along our summer so stay tuned;).
Mandalas on stones… There’s a post coming up soon about that – but first more about travel journaling.
So how can you make art at the seaside? – you can fill your travelling journal every single day of your vacation if you want to remember everything or just chose some most memorable experiences and sketch those – you can paint your own postcards like I did with this happy cocktail – blank watercolour postcards are sold at art and craft stores
Paint some postcards – friends will be thrilled to get a hand-painted card from you!
– or you can make your postcards from scratch (but more on that later) – you can paint mandalas on stones (I’ll show you how soon;) – my girls LOOOOVE this one! They are easiest done in acrylics but you really need only very little of them and you can use gouache or even coloured pencils to draw on stones – you can draw with leaves or coloured stones on the ground – you can make seashell necklaces – you can make fairy houses from pebbles and pine cones (use pine cone scales for the roof – it looks great!) – you can build sand castles, of course – a classic;)
Travel journal for the day – simple illustrations with some text about the day is all it takes.
You can invite your kids or friends to join you;) It makes great summer memories no matter the quality of the outcome!
There are many ways to decorate your art journal cover – be it a bought journal or a handmade one – the latter usually gives you more options, though – so it might be a good idea to learn how to make one (hint, hint;). But today, let’s just look at some of the ways we can decorate the cover of an art journal:
Different covers of my concertina art journals from my upcoming Skillshare class.
just letter the title (either what it is for – subject matter (i.e. “birds” or “slow drawing”, etc) or owner’s name (i.e. “by very.arty.fairy”) or time period – (“August 2022 – January 2023”) or any combination
paint it – the most obvious one;)
glue on natural material like pressed leaves etc…
glue on a magazine cut-out, postcards
decorate with die cuts
stick on stickers
rub on non-permanent (kids’) tattoos
collage on top of the cover – covers are usually pretty sturdy even when they are paperback so they are a wonderful collage substrate. Plus, you collage will reinforce the cover
Collage from gelli prints can make a really interesting texture. Rice paper on the other hand gives the journal elegance.
PS: I have an entire chapter in my upcoming Skillshare class devoted to this if you want to dive deeper – more on that on Friday, when it’s released – wish me luck:). And let me know which method you like the best and if I’ve left out you really like. I love to collect ideas:).
What is an art journal and what is a sketchbook? Are they the same? And what is a junk journal? What about sketch journal? Travel journal? Visual journal? Sketch diary? It can be somewhat confusing at times to see the examples and flip throughs of all these as they can look similar – what’s the difference – and does it matter in the end?
I love the sticker on post’s mailbox saying: “More love letters, please!”
To be honest, I don’t think it matters how you call the thing you make art in – as long as you use it:). But if someone is interested (as I was), here is what I’ve found on the subject i.e. my interpretation of what I’ve read/watched:
Travel to our magical island…
BOTH, art journal and sketchbook are little books filled with art. They can be bough (usually sold as sketchbooks) or hand made from blank papers or from trash paper (that one is called junk journal and is usually not used for sketching as the background is often busy so we need to cover it up somehow). It can be even made from flyers (and I’ll teach you that in the future:). They can both be small or large – although art journals are usually bigger. There are some differences, however – let’s look at those now:
Sewing a dress for my girl and referendum for waters combined…
ART JOURNAL is more of a loose term and it’s more focused on self expression and more often used by crafter’s community so drawing skills are not at the forefront of creating an art journal page. In majority of cases there are different media used so it usually looks more like finished mixed media pieces – single or double page. It often includes stamping and stencilling. The usual technique is to layer the background first with some colour, pattern, stencils, stamps, etc… and than bring in a focal point (a painted subject, collaged image or stamped, coloured and cut-out image or even sticker glued on). Then some techniques are used to tie the background and foreground together – like treatment of the edges, adding ground for the object to stand on, shading, more stencilling, splattering etc… Colour is usually a very important element and pattern or texture is more often included than not. Often a quote (stamped or written) is added and art journals don’t shy from use of stickers, shiny paint, glitter etc… It feels like a playful approach and since many times other people’s art is used in form of stamps and stickers… it can feel less intimidating to produce something nice. Julie Blazer and Kerry have some amazing resources and you can find a ton of good videos on YouTube: Vicky, Dylan, Susanne, Dina, Lindsey and many more…
A day at the seaside – holidays… very relaxed, very cute… everything I love about life:)
Sometimes more writing is included and when it focuses on your day, thoughts and emotions, it is often called a visual journal, a visual diary or a sketch journal. I love this kind of art journal/sketchbook since there is something special about recording your moments in a visual way – we remember them better and they get a different feel. My examples on this page are all in this range.
Preparing for the holidays…
SKETCHBOOK on the other hand is more for exploring ideas and honing skills – not so much the finished pieces of art. It is the term used by art students and artists and it’s a bit more geared towards developing skills (you can find gesture drawings and studies of one part of the body there, it’s full of studies, there can be many drawings on one page and the background is not always finished). Line is very important but colour is optional. Many times people have different sketchbook they all use at once and keep one for each subject matter: one for gesture drawings, one for birds, one for face studies, etc… Sketchbooks are also used for roughing out ideas – so media used are usually more sparse – often just pencil and/or ink, many times coloured with colour pencils or watercolour (that method is especially popular with urban sketchersand in travel journals because watercolours and fine liners are very small and light to carry around).
My favourite teacup and editing software:) And lunch, cookies, sports… a normal day…
TRAVEL JOURNAL is a sketchbook with art, inspired by your travels as the name suggests. It is not always done on location, however. Many artists just sketch while traveling and then they complete the pages in the hotel or even at home. It is most often done in ink (fine liners) and watercolour although that is purely for practical reasons and it can be done in any medium you like (Ian Fennelly uses markers and watercolour combined with amazing results and Following the rabbit hole has some amazing videos on the topic).
Drive to the seaside and sketching at the beach (yes, I love ice-cream)…
I’d like to finish with the line from Kerry Woodhouse: “You can call it an art journal, or a sketchbook or a visual diary. Heck, you can call it Gertrude. It really doesn’t matter. Just make sure you take it out and make some marks in it. Often.”
I’ve finished the 100 day project challenge! Yupiii! I never “celebrate” this things but smart arty people say we should so I decided to celebrate in the best company – yours :D. Sometimes we have to be our own cheerleaders but it’s still easier if there’s someone on the other side -at least for me ;). It’s very strange to me to publicly celebrate my “so called successes” but I said I’ll lean into the uncomfortable because they say that’s a good thing :D.
Keep your challenge interesting – try new stuff, flip your idea upside down, whatever floats your boat!
But to make this worth reading for you I’ll tell you what I’ve learned about completing long challenges: – if it’s a long challenge (a month or longer) – test drive your idea first so you know you won’t get bored with it – have a plan – what you will draw – it doesn’t need to be chronologically ordered but there need to be enough ideas for you to choose from – have a place to sketch/do art or whatever your challenge is – many people advocate for a certain time in your day when you should do this but I just do it whenever I have the time to do it – batching: some people make sketches, lineart or even everything in advance – I like to be a day or two ahead if something unexpected comes up… If you film everything it’s much easier to do that when the light is good… so that can also be a factor in your decision – same goes for scheduling content – I always felt it was kind of cheating to prerecord and schedule post for challenges but some people swear by it and it is certainly much more doable – and you probably learn the same – it’s 100 drawings in 100 days in any case – but most of all: KEEP IT INTERESTING! Don’t let this become a drag for you – or another chore on your “to-do” list! Change the idea to keep it fresh – I drew animals – just animals the first month and a half. Then I added story and drew one little bunny character and his adventures for a month. And the third month I did animals as if they were mermaids. Don’t be a slave to your idea – it’s supposed to be fun! If you are not doing this for some very rigorous art practice give your self some artistic licence… And even if you really want to learn – we learn best when we have fun – so just do it;).
Last week I’ve shown you a very simple method to draw a mermaid using the kids’ shape ruler. This week we will paint it with watercolours.
Video tutorial how to paint mermaids…
I used a pencil and eraser, fine liners (Pitt pens from Faber Castel) and Schminke watercolours but any waterproof pen and watercolours would work. This time I started with a line of action but that is optional. I made a sketch as in the previous video:
Beginner friendly tutorial how to draw a mermaid using a shape ruler.
inked it with fine liners and coloured it with watercolours. And just in case someone is looking for it – here is the tutorial how to make a kneaded eraser form eraser scraps that I’ve mentioned in the video:
Tutorial how to make a kneaded eraser from scraps.
Happy mermay everyone! I hope you find this useful and if you try it out, I’d love to know how it went – tag me @very.arty.fairy or write in the comments:)
Mermay deserves a mermaid in colour, don’t you think?
Very Arty Fairy 