My current art challenges! (June 2025)
In today’s post, I’m going to be talking about the two art challenges I’m currently working on.
If you don’t know, art challenges are kind of exactly what they sound like- a challenge to make art based on prompts and guidelines, such as content and duration. Some popular art challenges include Mermay, Inktober, color palette challenges, and 3 or 5 marker challenges.
My first challenge is a creation of my own based on a suggestion from my partner, and the second I found through a youtuber.
So let’s get into it!
CHALLENGE #1- FANTASY GEAR
This is a challenge I started in November of 2024 at the suggestion of my partner, and as of the time of writing this, I’m a well over halfway through. I started out doing it (mostly) daily, but quickly stopped doing that for two reasons- #1 if I put too strict of rules on myself, ill simply give up if I fail once, and #2 I started my second challenge at the same time I started using gouache for this one, and I don’t like mixing my gouache and watercolor water, as it can muddy up the watercolors.
The gist of this challenge is simple- each page of a small sketchbook I choose has a piece, or pieces, of fantasy gear. This a large umbrella- it can be bags, weapons, food… anything you may need to travel with in a fantasy world, be it past, modern, or future fantasy.
The reason I chose to do this challenge is because my main goal with my artwork is to niche down to doing fantasy work (which is still pretty broad, I realize)
I picked a lovely handmade sketchbook I got from an Etsy seller named “ArtsiRosi” quite a while ago, and it fit my needs and desires for this project perfectly- it’s a thick but small (roughly 4x5 in) watercolor sketchbook, with a large variety of paper types- hot press, cold press, bristol, white, black, and various colors… It provides a wonderful variety of textures and backdrops for a wide array of objects, done with multiple mediums.
I usually paint plain characters with no accessories or props, so this has been a great stretch of my artistic muscles, and I feel I’ve learned a lot already!
I highly recommend this challenge, or something similar, to any artist, especially those who struggle with props and objects, as it increases your visual library and muscle memory for the subject matter.
CHALLENGE #2- 100 HEADS
This is a challenge I’ve tried, and failed, years ago. I first discovered the challenge as #medsheads, aka Ahmed Aldoori’s 100 heads in one week challenge.
To adjust to my personal needs, I decided to try to do one head every day, or as often as I can manage, for as long as it takes, rather than in one week. I know if I tried to do it as Ahmed created it, I’d simply burn out and give up.
I chose to do them in watercolor in two small sketchbooks I found on Amazon, though they only have 24 pages in them, so that amounts to a total of 96 heads instead of 100…but I’m okay with that caveat, 4 missing isn’t going to affect my goal of practice that heavily. I began in March of 2025, and am aiming to finish by end of July at the latest. For reference, Ahmed has a selection of references himself, but I opted to find my own subjects on Pinterest to tailor it to my style and desires, like dynamic lighting, diverse bodies and skin tones, and fantasy creatures.
If you’re interested in drawing or painting characters, I highly recommend this challenge.
CONCLUSION
So that’s a huge chunk of what I’ve been doing recently!
If you’ve never done a challenge, I highly recommend it! But I also recommend being lenient with yourself; if you think a rule or prompt will make you crash out, simply change or ignore it if it will help you complete the challenge. A finished challenge is better than an unfinished one, and it always feels great to have done it! You also avoid all the negative feelings that come along with “failing” the challenge (failure is subjective).