Art challenges on Instagram, when considered in the scope of the history of art — are pretty darned new. I've enjoyed participating in a few of them, but it's generally been a haphazard thing. I see someone I like talking about it on social — or hosting it — and then I decide, wtf, I'm in!
The thing is, art challenges are time consuming if you take the time to do them right. By which I mean:
Completing a reasonable percentage of the prompts,
Checking out other people's work on the hashtag,
Commenting with something genuine and actually meaningful — not just a series of click-baity emojis.
(Some people also make a really nice piece of work announcing their participation in the challenge ahead of time. I rarely have done this, but it's very cool when people do! )
This level of participation has led to a lot of really nice things for me. I've gotten to know a bunch of new artist's work, made some cool art friends, been pointed towards some interesting opportunities. Not to mention, of course, creating some interesting art that I might not have made otherwise.
In my experience, doing an art challenge half-assed isn't really worth it. But, like all things to be done full-assed, a little advance planning is helpful — something more than wtf, I'm in!
But since there's no central clearinghouse of info on these challenges, I rarely find out about art challenges I find interesting until I stumble across them. (And sometimes I'd find an art challenge better aligned with my style or my goals while I was in the middle of one, and unable to take on any more, which makes me grumpy.)
So because I am a weirdo who thinks it's fun to make databases, I decided I would organize this mofo.
My plan at the moment is to publish a curated calendar of art challenges available on Instagram. I'm not republishing the prompts themselves, because I'll provide a link to the prompt list on Instagram, which you’re going to need to look at anyway. (As well, there are a couple of excellent Instagram accounts that repost challenge announcements and the prompt lists —Promptosarus —is a really good one.)
What I wanted to know is:
When each challenge starts and ends,
The general subject matter,
The scope of the challenge (i.e. the number of prompts, over the period of time.)
And how crowded the challenge is with participants. (Smaller ones mean you're more likely to make meaningful connections with other artists, larger ones have a ton of variety and an outside chance of becoming a STAR!)
Am I missing something important? Let me know in the comments!
At this point, my plan is to publish a new calendar each month. April will be the first one, and it’s dropping on Monday, March 29th! If you want to be emailed when I do:
And if you're hosting or participating a challenge in May or beyond, let me know! I'll add you to the list.