After about 4 years of ignoring the FOMO that goes with not participating in what's become an annual online art event, I've succumbed to the muse and am participating in a few October art challenges. My approach to the idea of making art everyday has changed over the years and I thought I'd share my thoughts on what changes I made and why I'm even participating.
First change: I'm not posting a prompt everyday. I lot of creatives tend to perpetuate a sense of failure if they approach a daily art challenge and fall short. I personally never felt this way, but this year I'm giving myself permission to just draw the things that inspire...a drawing. Instead of going into an art challenge and forcing myself to think of something to draw based on a one word prompt, if that prompt doesn't inspire something immediately, I'll skip it. Or I'll...
Second change: Reference other art prompt lists. Instead of sticking with just one art prompt list, i.e. Inktober, Drawlloween, Art-tober, etc. I'm looking at several different ones and picking and choosing prompts that I like. There are so many out there these days that it's hard to find a list that wont have something listed that gets my creative mojo going. A few that I'm using this year are #pouchtober, #TMNTober and #arttrober. These are the ones that were lighting up the fanboy parts of my brain, so I'm sticking with these (mostly).
Third change: I have the time. This isn't really a change to my approach, but to my daily schedule. Due to the nature of my day job, I can easily fit an art challenge into my normal day. In the past it was harder to find or make the time. This year, the spare time comes more easily and so I thought, why not?
Lastly: I'm keeping all things low key. After having participated in Inktober et. al. for years I've decided that the best way to participate this year is to keep things low--low stakes and low pressure. I like to draw and get in moods to draw things I don't usually draw. I wanted these challenges to be fun and really just give me a pleasant distraction from the day job. They've been an easy way to pass some time during the day and have been fun to post with no strings attached.
Do you want to know the one thing I am doing that I've done for all past art challenges (and really what I think is the ultimate secret to success to these sorts of things)-I work ahead. I typically make a drawing for a prompt that's two or three days ahead. This way, I never feel pressure and can take my time and make art.
