Lessons learned from my 30-day art challenge and social media experiment
Read it before you start your own art challenge!
Read on to get to my YouTube video link about my art challenge, if you prefer to listen :)
At the beginning of June 2023, I embarked on a 30-day pattern challenge, with the hopes of improving my pattern design portfolio, as well as gaining more online exposure by sharing my journey on my social media #30daysofditsy
At the beginning of my art challenge, I also shared an article here on Substack about the benefits of such a project:
How my 30-day art challenge improved my online portfolio
One of the most significant benefits of undertaking this 30-day pattern challenge was the positive impact it had on my portfolio, truly! Throughout the journey, I created so many amazing pieces that became a really great addition to my repeat patterns portfolio.
By dedicating myself to drawing a new vector pattern each day, I pushed my creative boundaries and explored a wider range of styles and techniques.
Stepping outside of my comfort zone was an important aspect of this 30-day pattern challenge. As an artist, it's easy to fall into the trap of sticking to familiar strokes. However, this challenge presented an opportunity for me to break free from those self-imposed limitations and explore new artistic territories, at least on some days :)
If you prefer to listen about my insights, check out my YouTube video “Watch THIS before starting a 30 day art challenge - tips + social media impact“:
On some days, I did some damage control in order to preserve my energy, and I created much simpler patterns. That was also very refreshing, because I tend to focus a tad too much on hero patterns, with too few “calmer” and less busy secondary and blender patterns. I am proud to say - I haven’t felt burned-out and I was able to protect myself from the overwhelm feeling.
Have you ever completed an X-day art challenge? 30, 7, 100-day? :) I’d love to hear about it in the comments section!
How did I do the “damage control” during my 30-day challenge?
I pretty much followed my own tips from my previous Substack article +I gathered a few extra tips around social media. Below I’m sharing with you the best tips I can possibly give you before you start such an art challenge yourself:
Pick a theme rather than a prompts list. A theme is so much easier to follow and gives you more creative freedom. I picked a ditsy theme. Not sure what ditsy is? It’s really fun, I created a whole course about it! “Automated Ditsy Patterns in Affinity Designer”
Simplify! Don’t overthink your theme, and especially if this is your first challenge or if you have a history of not finishing your challenges, definitely keep it simple! Go with florals for starters.
Take breaks. Of course, you have to create every day, but you can totally modify it. By taking breaks I mean - create something less complicated on the days when your energy is low, with less details or less motifs.
Skip posting on your social media if your energy is low. I wanted to create unique video content every day for my social media: YouTube shorts, reels and tiktoks. I was too tired after 7 days, not recommended!
Choose 1 main social media platform to post. To preserve your energy, focus on sharing your journey on one main platform, like Instagram. Pre-save your hashtags and part of your post descriptions and then just copy-paste them to save time.
Post and ghost. It is more important to keep up with your challenge. If you are tired, but you still want to document your challenge, just post and disappear - don’t reply to comments, close the app, go for a walk or to a cafe :) Nothing bad will happen, the algorithm will be annoying when you’re back anyways…
Go for walks. Seems like an obvious one, but I needed to include it on my list. Make sure to go out for daily walks: regardless of the weather, preferably alone, leave any technology behind.
Combining my art challenge and my social media test
You will get the most insights if you’ll listen to my YouTube video above, otherwise it’ll be a bit hard for me to summarize everything in text. In general, it’s best that you choose only one social media platform to focus on during your art challenge.
Personally, I wasn’t sure which one to choose for myself, so I kind of shot myself in the foot by taking them all :) However, I’m happy to report that YouTube as a platform was the most promising one for me.
I’ve noticed that through YouTube I’m able to find more people who are interested in taking my online courses, join my Facebook Affinity group or find this Substack. This is how I’m currently rating all my platforms (including my own website +blog), arranged with the most important at the beginning:
this Substack :)
Somewhere at the bottom of my list: Behance and TikTok.
Should you do a 30-day art challenge?
The short answer is: yes, totally! You could plan at least 1 per year and turn it into a personal project during the summer time, for example. Focus on a theme that will give you the most fun and ideally will be useful for your online portfolio.
Overall, my 30-day pattern challenge was a really cool experience that gave me significant benefits for my portfolio. It pushed me to create a few surprising pieces and go beyond my comfort zone. And once you have those beautiful new patterns or illustrations, don’t forget to update your website portfolio! (Wera is watching 👀 - get a website guys!)