Why should you participate in an art challenge?

Laura

0:07
Hi, this is Laura

Nikki

0:08
And this is Nikki…with the Startist Society, inspiring you to stop getting in your own way, and start building an art biz and life that you love.

Laura

0:17
We are artists who believes strongly in the power of community, accountability, following your intuition, taking small actionable steps, and breaking down the barriers of fear and procrastination that keep you stuck.

Nikki

0:31
Follow along with us on our creative business journey as we encourage you on yours.

Nikki

0:39
Laura, what are we talking about today?

Laura

0:42
Well, Nikki, today we’re talking about why you should participate in an art challenge.

Nikki

0:47
Laura, I love this topic. I am the queen of challenges.

Laura

0:52
The queen?

Nikki

0:53
Well, maybe just a princess.

Laura

0:58
Okay, you clearly have more experience in this area than I do. So please share more about the types of art challenges that you’ve done in the past.

Nikki

1:07
Okay, so there are so many kinds of art challenges out there. There’s Inktober, there are a million 30 day challenges. There’s the 100 Day challenge, which is really how I got started in the whole challenge thing.

Laura

1:24
Okay, tell me a little bit more about the 100 Day Project.

Nikki

1:26
Okay, so the 100 Day Project originally started from a Yale graphic design Professor, Michael Beirut, who assigned his students the task of repeating one thing every day for 100 days with the idea that that form of repetition is how you get to be an expert at it, you know, the whole 10,000 hours thing. So in 2013, Elle Luna, who is a designer/artist took up the project and began to do it through Instagram, with posting something every day. So you can pick whatever you want – you can pick a drawing project, you can pick collage, hand lettering, whatever. But the idea is you’re gonna commit to doing one thing every day, for 100 days and share it on Instagram.

Laura

2:19
Awesome. So I have seen a ton of people do it, I have not done it myself. So you said that you have done it. So tell me more.

Nikki

2:27
So I did it the first time in 2016. And I did 100 drawings on these little square watercolor sheets that I found that are just they’re amazing, they’re from Fabriano.

Laura

2:44
I love Fabriano.

Nikki

2:46
I’ll put a link to it in the show notes. It comes in this beautiful little box. And they’re just tiny little pieces of paper, watercolor paper. So I decided I would just draw on one of those. It comes in a box of 100. So it’s perfect. I would draw on one of those every day for 100 days. And after a couple days of – I did some flowers and a couple other things. I love drawing nude women. And so after the first couple days of drawing random things, I did a nude woman and I was like, “Okay, I’m gonna do a nude every day for 100 days on these pieces of paper.” Yeah, so that was amazing. Doing the same thing over and over and over again, for so long, you just get such a deep understanding, you get a whole series of work that you can then do you know, whatever you want with.

Laura

3:38
Right.

Nikki

3:39
I enjoyed doing that so much that I’ve just kept doing all of these challenges.

Laura

3:44
You also did a 365 day project. Which blows my mind.

Nikki

3:51
I did, I did. So after I did the 100 days of these nudes, then I did 100 days of patterns in Adobe Illustrator. Yeah, so I got into doing patterns. Again, I don’t even know if I’ve mentioned this. But my educational background, I went to Savannah College of Art and Design and so the fiber arts for grad school. So while I was doing that, I learned how to do repeat pattern designs. This was in the 90s. So it was you know…

Laura

4:25
Old school

Nikki

4:26
Old school, it was cutting paper and taping it together. I loved the idea of surface design and repeat patterns. But I did not like the old analog way. So I’ve always been wanting to learn how to do it digitally.

Laura

4:42
So did your 100 day project let you actually learn how to do it digitally?

Nikki

4:45
Yeah, so I actually took a couple of classes on Skillshare from like Bonnie Christine, Shannon McNab, a couple other people where I learned how to do it in Illustrator. And so I decided I wanted to get really good at it. And so I chose it for my second 100 day project. So my first one was doing all these nudes hand-drawn with ink on watercolor paper. And then the next one I did was the patterns. But then I liked doing that 100 day project so much, I decided I was going to challenge myself the next year to do a 365 day project.

Laura

5:23
What did you do for that one for 365 days?

Nikki

5:27
Well, so what I did was, I decided to not make the parameters so hard that I couldn’t do something every day. So I decided that I would draw every day, I wouldn’t complete a drawing necessarily every day, but I decided that I would draw every day in these Moleskine – they’re called Japanese albums and they’re accordion-fold sketchbooks.

Laura

5:51
So you could have like one continual drawing.

Nikki

5:55
I had done this before, just kind of randomly, where I filled one of those with a continuous drawing. But I decided that for 365 days, I would draw in one of these albums, and it would be one continuous drawing for an entire year. And when I finished one sketchbook, I would go to the next one, and it would continue.

Laura

6:12
I wonder how many square feet of drawings that you got out of that?

Nikki

6:17
At some point, I knew how many inches it was total. I didn’t know the feet, but I knew the total number of linear inches. But it was something like six sketchbooks over the year. And I will show some photos because it’s it’s pretty amazing.

Laura

6:33
I bet it’s phenomenal. I know you showed me a few. And I was really impressed.

Nikki

6:37
Thank you. But what I did was, I didn’t put the pressure on myself to finish anything in a particular day. So it was just to draw in it every day and make it one continuous drawing.

Laura

6:48
I think that that’s important, because I think a lot of people who who want to do challenges are intimidated by it. Because you think if I sign up for this thing, and I don’t do it every single day and fall off the wagon, then I failed. And that’s not really the point of it, it’s really just, I’m going to do a creative practice every day. And I’m going to show up. And if if I miss a day, I’ll just do it the next day,

Nikki

7:08
Right. And when I did my 100 days of patterns, I didn’t necessarily complete a pattern every day, I did some really simple ones that I could complete in a day. But I did some really complex ones that might have taken me a week to complete. But I was making patterns every day. And that’s the important thing. So with the 365 project, I may have drawn one day for like five minutes and just drew a couple of leaves. But then I might have drawn the next day for like three hours and filled three pages of it. But in the end, I had a year of one continuous drawing.

Laura

7:46
That’s amazing.

NIKKI

7:48
It was so much fun to do. And by the way, I then entered it into an exhibition at our local art center that I’m on the board of now and I won Best in Show.

Laura

7:59
I am super impressed by you.

Nikki

8:01
Well, you really should be.

Laura

8:06
So I know that you also started a project in the last year or so with the state flowers and insects. And I love those because I think you even have been super generous and have been offering some wallpapers for people to download.

Nikki

8:22
Here’s a story where I thought I was being easy on myself. And I ended up being really hard on myself because I decided after the 365 day project, where it was pressure to draw every day I thought I’ll be easy on myself. There are 50 states, there are 52 weeks in a year, I’ll just do one drawing of a state flower and insect a week. And at first, that seemed really, really doable. But as I was doing them, each one got more and more and more detailed and complex. And it’s now been two years and I’m still not done with all the states.

Laura

9:01
That’s okay, but the ones you’ve done are really beautiful and impressive.

Nikki

9:04
Thank you, thank you.

Laura

9:05
And you have more than you would have had had you done none.

Nikki

9:08
It’s true and I’ve managed to leverage them into a lot of different things. So I now have two years of calendars that are made from those drawings 2020 and 2021 have been state flower and insect drawings. And I offer, like you said, in my email that I send out…

Laura

9:29
Everybody sign up for Nikki’s email and you’ll get some gorgeous free downloads.

Nikki

9:33
Nikkimay.com. I send out wallpapers for your your desktop machine, your tablet and your iPhone with state flowers and insects. And I’ve also made coloring pages that I offer for free on my website.

Laura

9:48
Awesome. Yeah, there’s such a benefit to creating a habit of where you’re sitting down and you’re doing a little something every day and you can go either way, like you mentioned. So you can either choose something that’s super easy for you to do, like maybe something that comes second nature to you, but it’s just that creative time. Or maybe it’s just a five minute exercise instead of a three hour one. Or you could choose something that is really difficult. Like in your case, you said, I don’t know how to do Adobe Illustrator patterns yet, I’m going to give myself a project where I have to sit and do 100 of these patterns. And by the end of that, I’m going to know how to do this thing, even though it’s hard. It gets you past the hurdle, and helps you with that.

Nikki

10:29
Well Laura, I think you did a 30 day challenge that was pretty difficult.

Laura

10:35
I did. So, I am not nearly as experienced as you are at challenges. But last year, I did my first 30 day challenge, and it was one that was self-imposed or self-chosen. It was a “30 days of faces” portrait challenge. And the reason I did that, as I’ve mentioned in a past episode is I always thought that to be an artist, you had to be able to do portraits, and have them look better than stick figures. Because…

Nikki

11:06
Where do we get these ideas, this is what you need to call yourself an artist?

Laura

11:10
I know, it’s silly. But I did want to get better at that because I enjoy looking at portraits, I enjoy drawing them and I wanted to try to get better at it. So, I gave myself that challenge. And I had also recently discovered something called Sktchy and we’ll put a link to that in the show notes.

Nikki

11:26
And what is Sktchy?

Laura

11:28
Sktchy is a community of portrait artists where people go, they have a whole section where people put selfies that they have the copyright to, and give people permission to basically draw those pictures. And then the artists go and find inspiration on the platform. And then they draw the picture.

Nikki

11:29
Oh, I gotta check that out.

Laura

11:49
It is super cool, because you can go look at a picture and then you can swipe to the left and see the inspiration photo that somebody drew from. So they have classes and different things on there. And I had started getting involved in that platform. And I decided I’m going to do a 30 day faces challenge. And I did finish it. I think it took me maybe 35 days or something or 40 days to get it done. And I did include a chihuahua and a sloth in my faces. So…

Nikki

12:19
They have faces. Anything that has faces can be a portrait right?

Laura

12:22
So, they have faces and and in my highlights on Instagram, you can see all of the different faces I did in that particular challenge.

Nikki

12:30
I love the sloth. You gave away a print of the slot in our launch giveaway, didn’t you?

Laura

12:35
I did give away one. So I do love my little sloth. I did learn and I got considerably better over that timeframe because it was literally practicing the features and proportions of the face and skin tones and understanding all of the different details that go into making a face… and the background, the hair, and experimenting with all of those things. I did most of mine in Procreate on my iPad, but I also did a selection of the faces in watercolor, and in a mixed-media journal. So I really enjoyed that process. So I did that 30 day faces challenge and then after that I went okay, this is cool. I’m going to try another one. So I gave myself another challenge to do 30 days of watercolor flowers. And I had a little moleskine watercolor journal that I used for that… it’s a pretty small one. And I went through and just did 30 days of watercolor flowers because I love florals, and I love watercolor, and I want to get better at it. And so it gave me that experience of showing up every day and having something fun to do and something very, after spending all this time with my iPad, being able to sit down and do something analog.

Nikki

13:49
Yeah, for sure.

Laura

13:49
You know, dip my brush into the paints and play with these fabulous art supplies I have that a’re sitting neglected.

Nikki

13:57
All that teal and magenta.

Laura

14:01
So I had lots of fun. Don’t forget opera pink!

Nikki

14:03
Oh, I’m sorry.

Laura

14:06
So I had a lot of fun with that, and it wasn’t something that was like a finished product. I wasn’t planning on creating masterpieces with it. It was just learning techniques and practicing. So basically I did all of this watercolor floral experimentation in a sketchbook. And Nikki, I think that you have some experience with a sketchbook project as well, right?

Nikki

14:29
Yes, it was so cool. So the Brooklyn Art Library has this project where you can sign up and they’ll send you a sketchbook and you have a certain period of time to fill it however you want. You can tear it apart or just sketch in it, do whatever you want, and send it back. And it becomes part of this both traveling exhibition and in the actual Brooklyn Art Library where people can page through it and check it out.

Laura

15:00
That’s super cool. So yeah, you know that your art is being seen by real people from this sketchbook in New York, but then it also travels around the world and people can see it as an exhibition.

Nikki

15:12
Yeah. And you can go on the website and see who’s checked out your, you know, somebody in the Netherlands checked out your sketchbook.

Laura

15:20
Oh, that’s very cool.

Nikki

15:21
I have a video of me paging through the one that I did. I’ll post a link to it in the show notes.

Laura

15:26
Yeah, let’s put a link to the project as well. Yeah, that’s really cool.

Nikki

15:31
Super, super fun. So have you done any other kind of challenges, Laura?

Laura

15:35
I did. So after I did the watercolor challenge, then, most recently, this past October, I decided to participate in Inktober for the first time.

Nikki

15:45
And what did you do with that project?

Laura

15:47
And for that project, I chose, you know, everybody has different Inktober challenges. Traditionally, it was following a very specific list that one individual published, and you had to use like ink itself. And now Inktober, I think has broadened a bit that there are a lot of people that do pretty much any challenge they want with Inktober. They come up with all different types of ones.

Nikki

16:13
And they’re doing digital these days, sometimes, too. I did a digital one, myself.

Laura

16:18
I made the decision to do digital this year. And I followed along with They Draw & Garden, the Instagram account. Which is run by Salli and Nate. And I really love flowers and floral things. And they had insects and potted plants and different fun little prompts. So they had the 31 days of prompts, and I participated in theirs and it was fabulous. Because every day I was excited about working on that project for the next day. And I was very fortunate enough to be featured a couple of times on the account during the month, which is also a great way to get your artwork seen by other people.

Nikki

16:54
And this is on Instagram, right?

Laura

16:56
And this is on Instagram. So we know how Instagram can be a really busy world. Especially if you’re an artist that’s just starting out and trying to grow a following. It’s hard to get seen sometimes in the buzz and feel like you’re getting lost in the shuffle a little bit. And so participating in a challenge like this, and using the hashtag of the challenge and following and commenting and getting to know other artists that are participating at the same time you are is really fun. So I quite enjoyed that particular challenge. And also, I know that there are a couple of sister Instagram accounts to They Draw and Garden. So there’s also one called They Draw and Cook, which I think is the first account that they had. That’s where people illustrate recipes and foods.

Nikki

17:42
Where’s the one that’s They Draw and Eat, because I don’t want to cook but I want to eat.

Laura

17:48
I think you need to create that one, Nikki!

Nikki

17:50
Okay, let’s get right on it.

Laura

17:54
Then there was a They Draw and Travel, which is their third account that is full of illustrated maps. And so they have challenges, weekly challenges on their websites, and then you can join their newsletters and participate in those. And some of those challenges are even judged by art directors of different companies. So it’s a fabulous way if you participate, again to get your art seen. So we’ll definitely put links to this information in the show notes for anybody who’s interested.

Nikki

18:23
Don’t they have a new one coming up? Starting at the beginning of the year?

Laura

18:27
They absolutely do. So at the time that we’re recording this where it’s still not quite January 1 yet. So I do plan on participating in the They Draw and Garden challenge that’s happening for 21 days. It’s I think it’s January 1 through the 21st.

Nikki

18:44
Yeah, me too, any excuse to draw flowers.

Laura

18:47
Exactly. So I’m excited about participating in that one. I think by the time that you are listening to this, it may be after January 21. However, the 100 Day Project, I know that that is one that is going to be starting… I think it starts January 31 this year is that right, Nikki?.

Nikki

19:07
Yeah, it does January 31. And I’m going to do it this year. And because the last two years, I’ve done nothing but drawing digitally on my iPad, I’ve decided that I’m going to draw every day and I’m going to do it on paper. I’m not going to limit myself to anything specific. I’m going to go back to what I did with my first 100 day project with the little watercolor sheets from Fabriano.

Laura

19:36
Cool.

Nikki

19:37
And that’s the only limit I’m going to have is I’m going to do something each day on one of those sheets of paper. And it might be…

Laura

19:44
Something analog

Nikki

19:45
Something analog and it’s going to be just stuff in my studio. It might be just an ink drawing. It might be collage, it might be encaustic it might be who knows, but I’m just going to do something on it every day for 100 days.

Laura

19:58
Awesome.

Nikki

19:59
Yeah, what about you? Are you going to are you going to do the 100 Day Project?

Laura

20:04
You know, it’s scary to say because I have a lot of other things going on. I’m working on classes that I’m developing, but I am planning on participating this year. And, of course, I’m going to make things hard for myself.

Nikki

20:18
Of course you are.

Laura

20:19
So rather than doing something super easy, I am going to take on hand lettering for 100 days. And the reason for that is that I am challenged in that area. It’s an area I want to grow in, and I want to learn how to do illustrated hand lettering. My cursive is okay, I can do very basic things. But when it comes to illustrating lettering, I just struggle with having a smooth hand, and I really want to get better at it. So I’ve now purchased about five books about it, and taken maybe three Skillshare classes. And I’m going to put those things to practice. And so I’ll be working on hand lettering, and I may end up integrating some other things into that at the same time.

Nikki

21:04
Well I know that one of the things that you’re interested in doing is greeting card design.

Laura

21:08
Yes.

Nikki

21:09
So hand lettering is a great thing to learn to do that.

Laura

21:13
Exactly.

Nikki

21:14
And if you combine some hand lettering with some illustration, then that would be perfect. So because I like to make things difficult for myself, too. I’m going to do two 100 day challenges…

Laura

21:29
Oh, my gosh, you just overwhelmed us all.

Nikki

21:31
…consecutively. Okay…

Laura

21:33
You’ve overwhelmed us all!

Nikki

21:34
I know. But I’m going to do this. And one of them is going to be what I explained with the analog, something on these pieces of paper.

Laura

21:42
They’re like four inches by four inches, that’s doable.

Nikki

21:44
Yeah, I mean, they’re little, it’s going to be fine. That’s going to be fine. But the other thing I’m going to do kind of goes back to our last episode, which is about our word of the year, and courage. And I’m going to do something I’ve been avoiding for years, I keep talking about how I want to do licensing and collaborations with companies and submit my artwork to different things. And I’m going to do 100 days of submissions.

Laura

22:17
Awesome.

Nikki

22:18
You know, one day, it might be to an art gallery one day, it might be to a publication, one day, it might be to a licensing company. I’m not going to limit myself. But I’m going to submit something every day for that same 100 days.

Laura

22:36
That reminds me a little bit of the somebody did a project once that was something like 1000 rejection letters. And so basically you send out submissions to as many people as you can with the goal of being rejected, like that’s your, your bottom line is the more rejection letters, the better.

Nikki

22:53
Right, because the secret is, you’re going to get rejected. But the only way to get some acceptance letters is to put yourself out there. So I’m not going to say I’m going to get 100 rejections or 100 acceptance, I’m going to do 100 submissions.

Laura

23:13
Yeah, and the thing is, after you’ve submitted, let’s say, 50 times, that 51st time is a heck of a lot easier than the second one.

Nikki

23:21
Right? Right. You just lose that fear of the rejection.

Laura

23:26
Or you have it, but it’s just a little bit less.

Nikki

23:28
Right. Right. Right. But the trick is, it’s my word of the year. It’s courage. So, this is going to make me get past that fear.

Laura

23:38
So how are you planning to share your 100 day project?

Nikki

23:41
The original idea is to share it on Instagram. So, I mean, I will definitely share in my in my Instagram feed, and probably on Facebook, I’ll share the art that I’m doing. I’ll probably share the rejections more in stories because you know, it’s not going to be a pretty image. It might just be a story. So maybe it’ll be a Story. It’ll be a Reel it’ll be something like that. Or a Facebook post. I’ll definitely share more details about it in our Facebook group. So yes, if you want to learn all the gory details…

Laura

24:19
All the juicy details.

Nikki

24:20
About my rejections, and hopefully some acceptance. Definitely join our Facebook group.

Laura

24:27
Awesome. And I think you can use some hashtags. I know there’s a hashtag 100 day project that a lot of people use just so they can follow along with everyone else. For yours, are you going to use a specific one for your 100 days, have you decided what your hashtag is?

Nikki

24:43
I will, so the official 100 Day Project, you can sign up from the100dayproject.org. I believe it is, we’ll put a link in the show notes. You can sign up or you can just do it on your own. And the idea is to share it every day on Instagram and you use that hashtag, the100dayproject, but then you also come up with your own. So for mine, I think I did 100curvygirls or something like that for my first one and I did 365accordionsketchbook. So the idea..

Laura

25:18
You try to find something unique that someone else isn’t using.

Nikki

25:20
Yeah you come up with a unique one so that way when you wanna link to it, it puts all your, your whole project together.

Laura

25:27
Mm hmm. I think I’m going to do hand lettering with Laura. I think that’s it’s gonna be #handletteringwithlaura.

Nikki

25:33
I like it. I don’t know what mine is going to be yet, but I’ll share it when I figure it out.

Laura

25:39
All right, great. Well, I think there are a few other challenges that we haven’t mentioned, I know that another challenge platform that a lot of artists enjoy using is Spoonflower. Especially if you’re really into fabric design and repeat patterns. And I think they have weekly design challenges.

Nikki

25:56
They do, they do. They have weekly design challenges that are fantastic because Spoonflower is huge. For people who don’t know, Spoonflower is a platform where you can upload your designs, your repeat pattern designs, and they can be made into fabric, wallpaper, wrapping paper that people can buy, anybody can buy.

Laura

26:20
So they do weekly challenges where the art directors, sometimes they’re looking at those and possibly judging the competitions. I know that some people have had work that was licensed that was picked from their Spoonflower page.

Nikki

26:34
It’s a great way to stand out of the crowd, I mean, there are thousands of people on there, I uploaded a lot of my patterns from my 100 day project onto Spoonflower. And I’ve sold a very small handful, because it’s you know, it’s really hard to get found. But the people who win these challenges…

Laura

26:54
They do really well.

Nikki

26:55
They do really well, they get found, they get licensing jobs. So, it’s a really great way to get your work out there.

Laura

27:02
And I think it’s also a good way to get experience with sort of a design brief, you know, when you work on these prompts that you’re given, and these challenges that aren’t necessarily what you would sit down and do if you were left to your own devices?

Nikki

27:14
Because they’ll have things like okay, the challenge this week is small geometric, or they’ll give you a color palette.

Laura

27:23
Mm hmm.

Nikki

27:25
So yeah, it’s a great way to, like you’re working on a real design brief for an actual job.

Laura

27:31
And I believe another website that offers something similar is Minted, and they have beautiful products for sale that are all tied to different design challenges.

Nikki

27:42
I think that that to get on Minted, everybody who’s featured on Minted got there from winning a design challenge. And then once you’re on there, I think then you can just upload your work.

LAURA

27:56
Yeah, I think. So that could be an amazing way to also get your work out there and get eyes on it that you might otherwise not be able to. However, one thing that I think all artists need to be aware of is that they read the Terms and Conditions anytime there’s a challenge or a contest by any company, and they’re asking you to submit your art, is to read those Ts and Cs, and just make sure that you’re not giving away your copyright to your artwork to this company. I know sometimes people do that even when you submit and you don’t even win. And you’ve now given them your copyright. You have to be really, really careful.

Nikki

28:32
Yeah, definitely read the small print.

Laura

28:34
Yeah. And we want to make sure that as artists we’re compensated accordingly. And I think most of the companies like Spoonflower, or Society6 and some other print on demand sites, they will let you retain your copyrights. So there’s not as big of a fear of that.

Nikki

28:50
Right? And you never want to give away your copyright unless they’re paying you major, major bucks.

Laura

28:56
Exactly.

Nikki

28:56
And even then you usually don’t. Okay, so we’ve talked about a lot of things with challenges. What do you think our key takeaways are here?

Laura

29:07
We could talk for hours about challenges, are you kiding me?

Nikki

29:10
I love them, we could go on for hours, but let’s save it.

Laura

29:15
So I think our key takeaways are first, there are really three ways that you can do challenges. So one is that you can have a personal challenge that you give yourself similar to what I did with my portrait challenge. The second is that you can have an organized challenge like the 100 Day Project that you participate in with other people. Or the third one is you could be part of a contest challenge like Spoonflower or Minted where you could potentially get your work featured by a print on demand company.

Nikki

29:46
Okay, and then the next takeaway is, don’t be so rigid and hard on yourself that if you fall off the bandwagon for a day or two, you scrap the whole thing. You can get right back on. And you can even change the rules midstream if it’s not working for you.

Laura

30:09
And I think the third takeaway is don’t pick something that is too hard or too easy per se, make it easy enough to do every day, but challenging enough that you’re going to get something out of it and out of your time that you spend doing it.

Laura

30:24
Now it’s your turn. Are you interested in joining the 100 day challenge with us? We’d love for you to share what you’ve chosen and your hashtag in our Facebook group. You can tag #StartistSociety on your daily Instagram posts, or daily-ish Instagram posts.

Nikki

30:40
If you’ve enjoyed today’s episode, please subscribe, rate and review the podcast and share it with a friend. Visit startistsociety.com to learn more about the podcast and read the show notes where we’re including some images from the challenges we’ve participated in previously. Just for fun.

Laura

30:56
Thanks for listening, and we’ll see you next week.