I don’t think I’m alone in having started many more art challenges than I have finished. There was the 365 daily prompt challenge that only made it to Day 186, the One Week 100 People challenge that ended with just 26 drawings, Inktober, which lasted through Day 2… and so on. However, this past June I took the 30×30 Direct Watercolor challenge to the very end, and I just finished Day 15 out of 25 of December’s Triad-vent challenge. I’m going strong and I have no doubt that I will complete it. So, now I am trying to crack the case: What is it that makes me stick to a challenge, and conversely, what causes me to give it up?
The failed challenges have always begun with good intentions:
- Trying to create a habit of daily sketching
- Trying to improve a particular skill (e.g. drawing people)
- Trying to become more accurate drawing directly with ink in order sketch more quickly in general
Here’s what I’ve observed during my 1 ½ successful challenge experiences and what I think makes/made them work:
1. I push my skill set while still working within my grasp, maintaining reasonable expectations for growth. For Triad-vent, I set myself up to use colors that either sit in my drawer or, when they do make it into a palette, rarely get used. I removed all of my go-to colors from the three bags of yellow, red, and blue that I would draw from each day. I wanted to see if I should keep these tubes of paint for the “just in case” situation, or offer them up to someone who might find enjoyment in them. There have been days when I have breathed a sigh of relief after having selected a pretty standard yellow-magenta-cyan triad, but also many others when “Ugh!” was my initial reaction. If I feel like I am just following along, not pushing my learning, the challenge is unlikely to work for me. Conversely, if there is too big a leap involved, as there was when I tried to draw 100 people in five days, I get frustrated and don’t continue.)
A lovely yellow-magenta-cyan triad allowed me to happily paint a summer sunlit garden photo.
I uttered an audible “Ugh!” when I pulled these colors out of the bags, but set off to create a scene that would showcase the triad.
2. I can recognize and am able to apply previously learned skills, stretch them, see growth, and feel small successes along the way. During the Tri-advent challenge, as well as in June’s Direct Watercolor challenge, my learning has been palpable, and it feels great. I’ve seen improvement with my ability to analyze a triad, think about how I can make an orange read more yellow, or a green more blue, for example, or how to better use lifting or staining qualities of different pigments to enhance my work. If I feel stagnant, I get bored, and am not likely to complete the challenge.
Here, having no blue was a challenge for the sky and shadows.
3. There is unexpected learning. In June, painting with direct watercolor (no undersketch) day after day improved my ability to see shapes. And I began to apply the shapes in a scene to outline a sketch in sort of a parallel method to laying down an undersketch in pencil or ink. I have been applying that skill ever since. During Triad-vent, I have been surprised at how the limited triad has pushed my thinking about color. (Full disclosure, initially I included a neutral to supplement the triad, because I have many, but soon found that I wasn’t using them, so have given them up). Sometimes I have sought an image that is a perfect match to the triad, and others, I have pushed the limits a bit. The learning doesn’t necessarily need to be unexpected, but experiencing that “Aha!” moment certainly adds to my motivation.
I stretched the truth a little bit here, as sunsets in Casco Viejo are not quite this violet!
4. I prefer to have a choice of subjects. Many creators find having a provided prompt list helpful so they can sidestep the “What should I paint?” roadblock. While I do often struggle to come up with ideas, there were many times during the unfinished 365 daily prompt project that the prompt just plain stressed me out. I would draw a blank trying to come up with a creative rendition of “Countdown,” for example. Being able to paint whatever I want has been freeing. Some days I am just not in the mood to paint a landscape, and others the thought of focusing on perspective to get the buildings just right is completely unappealing. Choice has enabled me to focus one day on perspective, another on foliage, skies, cars, birds…you get the idea. So, sometimes I can just paint things that I think are fun…provided I select the right colors! I get frustrated if the constraints outweigh the flexibility I am allowed.
Bio Museo, Frosted Leaves, Military Macaw, and their respective triads
I will continue to evaluate these four criteria as I complete Triad-vent, and in future challenges to see if they hold. All of them provide excitement from learning and a little tension from the delicate balance between flexibility and constraints. Together, they hold my interest and keep me motivated. What works for you?
Comments
6 responses to “Triad-vent: What Makes or Breaks an Art Challenge?”
This is a great analysis! I have also often wondered why some challenges work for me, and others don’t, and I have come to similar conclusions: the challenge needs to thread the needle between too easy (boring) and too hard (frustrating), and it needs to allow me to lean into my present interests instead of going against them.
I noted earlier this month that “sky of the day” challenge that I set myself in January of this year didn’t get off the ground, but I was much more successful in doing a month of Brooke Morales-style post-it sized skies. As you said, the scope of the challenge needs to be small enough that I don’t get frustrated and give up. Keeping it small helped. Keeping it small is helping for Triadvent illustrations, too.
I have also rarely managed to do any of those challenges with prompt lists. The prompts are meant to be open to interpretation but I often find them either baffling or constraining. I’m noticing during Triadvent, when my only constraint for a subject is “something to showcase with the selected colors,” that I always want to do a landscape with a sky. I can generally find a way to do this with any color combination. But any prompt that can’t be fulfilled by a landscape is going to bore me/stress me out.
It is a fine line. I REALLY want to get better at drawing people, so it stands to reason that drawing a bunch of them when the 100 people challenge comes around would hook me. I think this is where the fine line comes in – I’d need to do a few tutorials first so I don’t feel completely out of my league when I do the challenge.
With regard to specific prompts, I take them too seriously. I want my vision for the prompt to be unique, so my brain gets fried just trying to come up with an idea for the sketch, leaving no energy for the painting. Not supposed to be the point, though!
I am in the exact same boat. While my friend has certain sketchbooks for certain subjects, I am a complete randomizer, choosing what FEELS good that day.
Art is a feeling, right? At least, that’s how Kolbie Blue talks about it LOL.
That’s a really good analysis of art challenges. For me, prompt lists work, but they are a lot to demand. For inktober, I need a lot of preparation, some dedicated brain storming and a search for references beforehand.
And beside the obvious challenge, I always set some small additional goals. For last inktober it was: explore splashy watercolor backgrounds, paint a bit more loose and paint without an ink line. The last one didn’t work out, in such a demanding challenge I needed the comfort of the ink line. But the other ones were really fun to try and made me happy to explore them.
Once I tried a 100 day project, it lasted maybe 1-2 weeks for me. Because I didn’t make a plan and I had a decision fatigue on what to paint each day.
Almost every challenge aims at getting into a daily painting habit. This I already have. Maybe not painting, but being creative each day. This takes at least a bit of pressure out of the challenge.
I think decision fatigue is a big part of it for me, too. I usually do better at challenges where the structure makes some of the decisions for me (like Triadvent or daily skies or working through a tutorial book/class), and worse at challenges that require a lot more decision-making (like interpreting those abstract prompts).
To ink or not to ink is always a question for me. I did find when I did Direct Watercolor for the whole month of June that by about 3/4 of the way through, I really missed inking. Now I try to choose based on the scene or how I want the piece to feel. I always have to keep an eye on how much detail I’m putting in when I do ink. I can get too tight very quickly and I prefer when there’s at least a little looseness.