Ideas For Artist Challenges

​Open yourself to new experiences to improve your artwork.  Consider the more your honor your creativity, the more you’ll notice what you’re drawn to and curious to try.  So, create a place now to keep those ideas for inspiration later. One of the biggest challenges is knowing where to start. This can be especially tricky if, like most of us, you were taught that play is for children and adults have responsibilities and serious things to do instead. If you’d like a little helping hand, here are some ideas for artist challenges to get you started. Feel free to pick and choose the ideas that work for you.  Consider sharing these activities with a friend, another artist, or even a group of artists!  There happen to be 52 challenges here which coincides with 52 weeks in a year, so open up your calendar and schedule Artist Challenge time once a week and keep the appointment on your calendar!  Be on time!

Making and Creating
1. Create a vision board (Pinterest is useful for this!)
2. Organize your wardrobe. Bag anything you no longer wear. Arrange your clothes by category, color, or however else you want.  Think wearable art!
3. Turn one area of your home into a creative corner. What could you do there? What can you add to make the space inspiring and inviting?  Bring creativity into your own home!
4. Enjoy an adult coloring session. Maybe Zentangle with Lisa  Rischman
5. Create a mini herb garden in your kitchen. What do you have space to grow?
6. Try your hand at a new kind of art. Look up a few tutorials on YouTube or book a local class. What calls to you?
7. Visit an art, bead or craft shop and browse, letting your imagination run away with you. Have your sketchbook handy!
8. Make your own self-care routine.
9. Make your own journal or notebook.
10. Collage! Get some old magazines (if you don’t have any, second-hand shops sometimes sell them in bulk) and cut out any images and words that resonate with you.
11. Spend an afternoon making part of your home as beautiful as possible. Choose an area that could use some TLC and go to town.
12. Make a meal with courses from different countries.
13. Set yourself a creative budget of $10. Visit your local art or craft shop and see what you can create within this constraint.
14. Spend a couple of hours taking self-portraits. Play around with light, color, background, expression and image filters.
15. Try your hand at writing poetry. Stuck for where to start? Try creating a few haikus.
16. Buy a couple of plants for your home Make sure they are suitable for your environment and research how to care for them.
17. Make your own Christmas decorations. Instead of buying new decorations this year, make a pledge to DIY.  This includes Christmas cards and envelopes!
18. Create an upbeat playlist and hold your own solo dance party.  Amazon Prime or Spottify is what I use.
19. Try baking something ambitious. Stretch your cooking skills to their limit!
20. Spend an afternoon window shopping. Stop at stores you usually walk straight past and take the time to browse and notice what they’re offering.
 
Trips and adventures
21. Visit a local museum.
22. Visit a historical building and imagine what it must have been like to live and work there back in the day.  Mentor, OH has the Garfield House.
23. Visit a park and sit for a while, people watching, reading and enjoying nature.  Take your sketchbook with you!
24. Walk through a new neighborhood and take in the ambience.
25. Visit a local flea market.
26. If you’re in the city, spend an afternoon in the countryside, or if you’re in the country, go to your nearest town. Change your scene for half a day.
27. Visit a local farmer’s market. Take in the sights, sounds and scents. Watch the gestural activity humans have here as they interact with each other.
28. Research self-guided walks around a local area. Do one.
29. Take your camera for an outing, Look out for interesting views, compositions, lines, angles and subjects.
30. Spend a couple of hours at your local coffee shop. Use snippets of conversation you hear to create doodles..
31. Take a trip down memory lane. Use Google Maps to return to one of your favorite places from childhood.
32. Find a couple of unusual “hidden” local attractions - Visit one.
33. Look up top-rated attractions on TripAdvisor in your local area. Pick one  to visit.
34. Copy random pages of a novel, or take yesterday’s newspaper, and create blackout poems.
 
Reflective activities
35. Write a gratitude letter to someone who has had an impact on your life. You don’t have to send it (but you can if you want).
36. Spend an afternoon looking at beautiful homes on Pinterest. What is beautiful about them to you? How can you recreate some of that beauty in your own space?
37. Create a vision of your dream life at your next significant age (I.e. 30, 40, 50, 60, etc.).
38. Visit your nearest shoreline and spend a couple of hours watching the waves, noticing what thoughts dance through your mind.
39. Make a “love list” of activities you’d like to try in the future.
 
Expanding horizons
40. Watch a foreign movie. Pick a country whose films you’ve never seen before.
41. Go to your local library and pick out 3 books on a topic that sounds interesting.
42. Go shopping and try on 3 items of clothing that you would never, ever wear. What do you notice? How do you feel wearing them?
43. Go to a second-hand book store. Choose a book that catches your eye and spend a couple of hours reading it.
44. Look up lists of classic books and movies. Choose one you haven’t seen before and start watching or reading it.
45. Revisit a toy or tool you loved to play with when you were a kid (e.g. play dough, silly putty, Legos). Get some and spend and play!
46. Go for a walk in a nature spot (think beach, countryside) and pick up two or three nature souvenirs for your home space. Remember not to take anything that’s protected or could have an effect on the local ecosystem.
47. Create your own learning curriculum What resources  will you use?   Coursera, iTunesU, Open2Study
48. Take a trip down the Wikipedia rabbit hole. Look up something that interests you and see where your curiosity leads!
49. Focus on learning (or relearning) a new physical movement, such as a headstand, handstand, cartwheel. :O
50. Try a new language. Sign Language, French, Spanish, Latin… Duolingo and Memrise are helpful tools on how to start.
51. Start a new jigsaw puzzle. Notice how it feels to watch the pieces come together.
52. Write down 10 new things you’d like to experience before your next birthday. Plan to do the first thing asap.