November Squares
Over the last month, I was participating in the November Squares art challenge by Faye Bridgewater. Like other art challenges on Instagram, Faye provided a new art prompt each day for the entire month. What was different about this art challenge, and what I liked about it so much, was that Faye would post the prompt early in the day with a description of how she was going to tackle the prompt. The beauty of this set up was that if you were struggling with a prompt and were not sure what to do to complete it, then the idea was there ready to go, making this art challenge accessible to even the most novice of painters.
I am a creative problem solver, so I like to use Faye’s prompts as a jumping off point and I like the aspect of trying to make the prompts my own with what I have around my house. For for example, on Day 9, the prompt was P I C K U P S T I C K S and while many went outdoors to find sticks to paint with, this prompt reminded me of the game Pick Up Sticks from when I was a kid and I grabbed a handful of toothpicks, centred them on the page and let them go. Where I differed from the game was that I traced around the shapes the sticks created and then picked them up from the page. Once I had these shapes left behind, I coloured them in to create these types of islands. The idea for the tracing and creation of islands came from another idea I had seen on Instagram where someone had used rice to create maps of fantastical worlds by tracing around the clumps of rice.
And this is what I really love about these art challenges, they give you a place to explore ideas you might not normally think of and they get you out of your comfort zone. It’s also a great opportunity to play without having to worry about the results. After all, this work goes into a sketchbook and the choice to share it publicly is entirely up to you. For me, it’s an opportunity to go a little more abstract and enjoy the process of making art without considering whether or not it looks the way I wanted it to in the beginning.
I also think these art challenges give you an opportunity to grow as an artist by creating a habit of daily practice. It’s what I enjoy about the 100 Day Project as well. Through daily practice, even if it is only 5-10 minutes a day, there is a growth that happens over time. This growth becomes really obvious when the process is documented and I enjoy going back through photos to see where I have started to where I am today. The other thing about daily art practice in an art journal is that the quickness of it requires a level of looseness that allows for spontaneous results. It’s the spontaneous results that are the most exciting and what I enjoy looking at afterwards.
If you are someone who wishes they could paint or you look at artists and say “I wish I could do that”, then my advice to you is to start an art journal practice. Art can be practiced in many ways. Through collage, painting, mark making, drawing, colouring, using found objects, etc. Faye had a few prompts where she left objects on paper in the elements for a week and waiting to see the results. How ever you choose to explore art is entirely up to you. The key is the desire to create.
As a final thought, I want to say that doing art challenges should not be a pressured experience. Some days I did not have time to do the prompt, so I would either make up for it on a weekend, or I skipped the prompt entirely. That is okay and should be okay because the idea is that we are doing this activity for our pleasure and not because of a pressure to complete it because we signed up for it. The art challenges are meant to give you ideas to spark your creativity and not to add stress to your life.
If you would like to explore your creativity this month, here are some ideas to get you started:
stamp found objects in paint and explore the shapes you can create on paper
paint with a medium you have never used before (watercolour, ink, acrylic, gouache, oil)
cut out images you like from old magazines that are all the same colour and create a new image through collage
go outside and trace the shadows that you see on your paper (can be from trees or plants or found objects, whatever strikes your fancy)
Whatever you do, have fun exploring!
Laura