Five Tips for Sticking to a Summer Art Challenge

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Art challenges can be a great way to motivate creativity this summer! Do a quick search on Google or Pinterest and you can find lots of graphically engaging lists of prompts for making all kinds of art. Here are five tips for successfully sticking to your challenge.

1. Set your own challenge for yourself. Challenges are generally more successful when you choose it for yourself and are personally invested in the challenge. If someone else sets the goal for you, it becomes less about something you want to achieve and more about pleasing someone else.

2. Set an attainable goal. A goal to do something daily is great if you actually have the time and motivation to do it. If the goal is too strict or difficult to accomplish it might not be attainable. Instead of a daily goal maybe set a goal to engage in art 5 out of 7 days in a week for a month. That way if you miss a day, you won’t get too discouraged or give up. Try making it a weekly goal instead of a daily goal. Or set a shorter time frame (for example, draw every day for a week rather than every day for the whole summer) Try setting multiple short term goals for the summer.

3. Set a goal that is specific and measurable. Wanting to improve your skills is great! But making vague goals like: this summer I am going to get better at drawing or this summer I’m going to do more drawing are not measurable goals. How will you know if you reach that goal? Instead, try being more specific. For example, this summer I am going to draw in my sketchbook 5 days out of every week.

4. Select a format that works best for you. Really specific challenges can be great because they pushed me conceptually and forced me to illustrated a specific theme each day, but if that sounds too restrictive and you’d become frustrated or bored try an idea jar instead. Take a challenge you find online and cut up each prompt into separate papers and place them in a jar. When you want a prompt for your artwork, select three ideas from the jar and choose one of them. This adds more freedom for you to choose and may help you stick to your goal.

5. Be held accountable If no one knows you are doing the challenge you might find it easy to let it slide when you hit a plateau or a wall. Instead find someway to be held accountable. Let someone know what your goal is and check in with them to share how you are progressing. Maybe post images on social media or find another outlet to create mini deadlines for yourself like participating in Illustration Friday where you submit a drawing on a weekly basis.

Whatever your challenge is for the summer have fun with it, be realistic and extend yourself some grace if you slide off course. Art can be a great way to relieve stress and anxiety. You owe it to yourself to spend some time making art this summer. How will you challenge yourself?