Challenges For The Bold & Brave
- theshadowgirl16
- Sep 23, 2020
- 3 min read
Hello universe,
This week’s ramble is for all my fellow artists. This post is full of art challenges to help improve your skill, develop now habits and to connect you with more of our fellow artsy peoples for further inspiration.
A big thankyou to YouTubers; DrawingWiffWaffles, SuperRaeDizzle, The Last Coffee Bean, Tamaytha and Jess Karp for posting your sketch book tours and inspiring me to improve my artwork.
And so without further ado,
THE 100 HEADS CHALLENGE:
Ahmed Aldoori originally started the 100 heads challenge under the hashtag #meds100heads. It’s a challenge which consists of drawing 100 portraits/heads in 10 days (10 heads a day). The challenge was started to help artists practice and refresh their knowledge of face proportions and anatomy.
My sketches from Pinterest references
Sorry for the terrible quality
Ahmed Aldoori has a Pinterest board already set up so that participants of the challenge don’t have to go searching, but you can use your own references if you so desire.
When drawing the portraits it is important to keep in mind the angle of the portrait and the lighting source for shadowing effects. Also another thing to further develop your skill while participating in this challenge is to draw people from different cultures and doing different poses. The more you do the more you learn.
On Pinterest, boards of portrait references are available. Some examples are;
(The above board has several sections if you want to be specific in what kind of portrait you are looking for)
THE 100 HANDS CHALLENGE:
Originally brought into the light by Hnilmik on DeviantArt the 100 hands challenge, similar to the 100 heads challenge was made to help artists sharpen and practice their skill with drawing hands... AKA the artists greatest weakness.
Everyone who's drawn a person has undoubtedly gone through the phase of drawing their character's hands behind their back in a super sketchy pose (literally). According to Hnilmik the animators at Disney make their interns draw 100 hands to develop their skills. Hnilmik decided to challenge themselves with drawing 100 hands in five-ish days.
Along the way Hnilmik focused on practicing the perspective/foreshortening of the hands and the shading and lighting where needed.
The challenge is amazing with helping people develop their skill with one of the greatest challenges known to artists.
Below are some ready-made Pinterest boards for anyone to use for references.
INKTOBER!!
Originally started by Jake Parker in 2016, INKTOBER is a month-long challenge dedicated to helping artists to improve their skill and develop positive drawing habits. There are two different versions og INKTOBER, INKTOBER classic and INKTOBER 52.
INKTOBER classic is a 31 day challenge filled with one prompt per day for artists to sketch & ink out and then either share with the world or keep to themselves. It’s a free challenge and is guaranteed fun and frustration.
For some people drawing everyday isn’t an option so for people in these circumstances’ participants follow the 1st, 8th, 15th, 22nd and 28th prompts for a weekly challenge.
INKTOBER 52 is a year-long challenge with one prompt a week, for 52 weeks (A year). The advantages of doing the INKTOBER 52 instead of the classic challenge is that throughout the year you continuously sharpen your skills.
As can be guessed by the challenge name INKTOBER is set in October, aka in seven days people! YouTubers such as DrawingWiffWaffles, SuperRaeDizzle, LethalChris Drawing and others participate in INKTOBER so in addition to the prompts given by the official website there’s going to be hundreds of videos provided by talented youtubers which could help you further out of the Art Block phase.
So if you are up to a challenge and want to take a chance to improve and practice your artwork then join me and countless others this October on #INKTOBER2020.
And now we have our first featured opinion from someone other than yours truly. I reached out to The Last Coffee Bean earlier this week for any advice that she would want to give to any artists or readers.
Advice from The Last Coffee Bean:
“Honestly my advice would be to practice in any way you find fun! It could be a challenge, from books, doing fan art, etc. Whatever makes you practice drawing and feel happy drawing! I also recommend constantly looking for ways to push yourself out of your comfort zone and not letting art style hold you back from trying things out (I’m trying to figure that one out still lol)! I hope this helped a bit!”
Welp, that's about all for this week folks. If you want a say on what I should post next on Life In The Shadows or you have any art challenges that you want me to mention, then post your opinion below in the comments section (It may be looking a bit dodgy, bear with me I'm still tweaking it).
Anyway, stay foxy folks.
The Shadow Girl, Fading Out xx
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