Making more art by participating in an art challenge!

Hello everyone!

I started this website last year and have literally not touched it in a whole year because I got busy with other things and didn’t really know how to move forward with my website and art journey.

Now that I am several months into my gap year, I have a little bit more time on my hands to devote to my art goals.

This blog post will be about an art challenge that I took part in August of this year. I had wanted to take part in an art challenge for some time but couldn’t find the right occasion. However, the itch that developed from all the ‘putting off’ of art challenges made me look for art challenges that would be starting in August.

I came across one called 31 Animals August, hosted by Kick in the Creatives, a British duo of artists who podcast and host 3 art challenges every month.

Although the 31 Animals August challenge comes with its own set of prompts, I decided I wanted to simplify my decision-making even further. And so I stuck to a list of animals that are found in the Arboretum of my hometown, Guelph. 

I used my first-year university Woodlot Biodiversity textbook for inspiration, alternating between birds and mammals and a few reptiles and amphibians. At first, drawing 31 animals did not seem like such a big task, but the more I drew the more I realized how hard it can be to be consistent in my work. 

Despite wanting to create a fresh painting every day, I ended up painting in batches, just to save myself some time. It can be hard to find time when you’re working full time and have several other commitments - so you do what you can. The most important thing for me was to make 31 paintings of local species, whether I made and posted one a day or painted several in one day and then posted them throughout the next several days did not matter that much.

I just wanted to show my audience the range of animals that we have right in our backyards, or in the nearest woodlot! It’s easy to forget how special something is when you see it every day. Thinking that my art might teach myself and my followers about the many wonderful animals we have in our city was really motivating.

I learned a ton about the species I drew as I included a series of fun facts about each animal when I posted the image on Instagram. Who knew that cardinals are so territorial that they will attack their own reflection? Or that porcupines have natural antibiotics in their skin? These are all things I learned as I went along, getting to know each species a little bit better.

By knowing more about something, we tend to care more about that thing, maybe because we understand it better and it becomes less unfamiliar and less threatening. 

Nature education for the win!