There are hundreds of online art challenges that you can get involved in. They sometimes involve themes, lists, timeframes, and media. They motivate, inspire and challenge and people get involved in different ones for different reasons.
I have described some below and added links to the sketches/art for you to browes if you are interested. I have had a great time putting this together as it brought back so many memories.
I have been involved in a few and have enjoyed them immensely. I am writing this blogpost now as one of them has come full circle and some of my Sketchbooks that have been in NEW YORK for a few years have now come home I will share the Sketchbook Project adventure and talk about some others.
Sketchbook Project
Since its founding as a non-profit organization in 2006, the Sketchbook Project grew to include over 50,000 artists’ books, which have been contributed by 30,000+ artists from over 135 countries. Each book is 5″ x 7”, with 16 blank pages and a unique six-digit barcode, for cataloging and tracking purposes.
THE IDEA- sign up for a sketchbook and you are given one of many themes and can interpret it any way you want, as long as the book is returned the same size so that it can fit back on the shelf in Brooklyn Art Library in New York.
They were housed in New York and some were included in regular pop-up tours around the US. Mine even toured Australia and I saw it! You could borrow a book (specific or random) to browse on-site and would be given ones either side of it from the shelves. That way you got to see lots of people’s interpretations of the same theme
After 17 years, hundreds of thousands of book checkouts, over 50k sketchbooks created, and thousands of miles traveled, the Brooklyn Art Project is now closed.
On Monday, February 28th, 2022 the moving trailer that was transporting the entire Sketchbook Project collection from Brooklyn to St. Pete was in a devastating accident Around 70% of The Sketchbook Project collection was saved through the heroic efforts of local volunteers, firefighters, and community members from a nearby church who so kindly moved each box of books one by one into their parking lot. They lost around 7,000 books from the collection. One was mine – Travelogue. But I do have the scanned version and I have printed it as well.
Last year, the wonderful volunteer team decided that it was “No longer financially viable.” to continue. The books were distributed to other galleries. I decided this was the moment that my sketchbooks came home.
Below are my projects
Sketchbook Project 2013 Travelogue
I revisited my Paris 2007 holiday, as if I was sketching as I do now ! .. and of course planning how would approach future travel sketchbooks. I sketched from photographs.
Sketchbook Project 2012 : Sandwiches. I decided to draw the memories of my Primary School sandwiches (1970’s Australia). I had such FUN doing this one. I researched original packaging from the time and chatted with my brother and mum to see if my memories were the same as theirs!
Sketchbook Project 2010 : The View From Up Here
sketches from imagined a hot air balloon ride over scenes I had in photos or located online from A-Z
Sketchbook project 2009 : Elephant in the room
I interpreted this literally – going to the zoo and sketching and photographing elephants and then drawing them in rooms.
EveryDay in May
Another challenge – this one is still going. A list is posted on the Flickr and facebook page on 1st May and you draw one item on the list (see below) every day in May until you finish on 31st May with number 31.NO stress if you miss a day – just go on to the next one and catch up if you can. It is ok to combine a few, or to jump around if it suits…but the ideal is to do the right one on the day like everyone else….but most importantly have fun! This was and still is a wonderful project.
I had to go back to the Archives and found this description on Liz Steel’s website
Started originally by French Toast Girl, the idea was to do something creative every day for the month of May. The first few years that I was online, everyone in the Everyday Matters(EDM) group did a different thing ( The daily discipline was great.Then in 2010 a few of us in Sydney were chatting and decided we would draw the same things – using the EDM list for inspiration. There was only a few people doing it, I managed the list manually on my blog – wow – those were the days! It was so much fun to see everyone drawing the same thing each week, and the great thing about the EveryDay Matters list is that a lot of them are prompts rather than specific objects so you have the chance to be creative.
2020 2016 2015 2013 2012 2010 2009
One Million Giraffes
My two contributions to a fun website that aimed to collect one million hand created giraffe images by 2011. www.onemilliongiraffes.com.
Illustration Friday – click on the link to see my Album of sketches
Illustration Friday was a weekly illustration challenge. A topic was posted every Friday and then participants have all week to come up with their own interpretation
it was at www.illustrationfriday.com/
Below is my response to Paisley
I prefer to call them projects rather than challenges. I love a project and a deadline ! They can be individual however being involved can also connect you to a larger community.
All of these started in 2009. I started adding photos and then scan of my art to Flickr in 2008. It must have been a time when I was looking for creative outlets. We had Sydney Sketch Club, but Urban Sketchers had not started up in Sydney.
Three Sydney friends & I used to meet once a month at a food court in Sydney to work on our Sketchbook Projects. We still kept meeting after some had decided not to continue. We still meet now on Zoom and I write the meeting in my diary as SBP (SketchBook Project)
EveryDay in May – posted to Flickr (a photo sharing website) . I am still in contact with some of the group from 2009 and Mum participated each year too. The only time of the year she sketched It took a few days for her to warm up but she was great !
Giraffes was a great project – Mum drew more than me!
I don’t do as many challenges anymore as I have so many art projects in my life. International Nature Journalling Week starts on June 1. I will be focusing on their broader prompts and themes and thinking a lot more, rather than responding to a subject/object.
What challenges do you do ?
Your Sketchbook Project books look wonderful! I have/had a couple of books there, too, but I opted not to have them returned to me. I did keep digital images of all the pages. The challenges I do annually are Inktober (draw in ink every day in October) and, at least the past couple years, the 100 Day Project (do a specific creative thing every day for 100 consecutive days; the participant decides what to do). One that was perhaps most helpful in terms of my art was Ian Roberts’ 30-Day Challenge, which is to make a small compositional study every day for 30 consecutive days. I learned a lot with that one. I enjoy challenges too, as long as I can find a way to make them my own and challenge myself, not just follow prompts.