Introduction
Art challenges on Instagram are a great way for new artists to gain exposure because they allow artists to showcase their work to a larger audience. When artists participate in art challenges, their work is often shared and re-posted by other users, which can help to increase the artist’s visibility and reach on the platform.
In addition, art challenges often have dedicated hashtags that are used by participants to tag their submissions. This makes it easy for users to discover new artists and their work by searching for the relevant hashtags. By using relevant hashtags and tagging other users in their art challenge submissions, artists can increase the chances of their work being seen by a wider audience.
Art challenges also provide an opportunity for artists to interact with other users and build a community around their work. By commenting and engaging with other users, artists can make connections and potentially gain new followers.
Overall, participating in art challenges on Instagram is a great way for new artists to gain exposure, showcase their work to a larger audience, and build a community around their art.
What Are Art Challenges?
Art Challenges are designed to motivate you, the artist, to participate in creating art on a daily or weekly basis. This is great for those who need a little encouragement to get some art out into the world!
You can use any art challenge to overcome artist blocks, find your art style, reinvent your style, build your portfolio or even create new products for your stores. Of course, these aren’t the only reasons so many artists participate but this is a great way to showcase your art on social media.
Another reason so many artists join art challenges is to get more involved with the art community. Now more than ever, Instagram is encouraging creators to engage with their audience and make meaningful connections. This is a great way to do just that. You can post your process as a video from behind the scenes, share timelapse videos with programs like Procreate and even share new products you came up with, all inspired by art challenges. Honestly, the sky’s the limit!
Art Challenge Examples
Typically an art challenge will have a dedicated theme and the creator will provide a daily art prompt. For example, Instagram user @Rickytheunicorn created the #snowyjanuarick art challenge which featured daily art prompts such as “resolution”, “wish”, and “bath time”. Sometimes a creator will also provide a color pallet which is usually optional but adds a little bit of a guideline in case you are feeling overwhelmed.
I personally love this art challenge because it is the beginning of a new year which is perfect for me to refine my style and business goals. I was able to come up with some really cute designs and I further challenged myself with my own art pallet to ensure one cohesive series.
Another great example is the #Melotober22 art challenge. This was created by @Melosprout on Instagram. Melotober22 was full of cozy fall daily art prompts like yarn, tea time, and rain. I decided to illustrate with some grumpy chicks waiting out the rain for the “rain” prompt. You can come up with so many unique designs, it’s really a great opportunity to discover your art style. #Melotober22 was actually my very first art challenge I ever participated in. It was so fun to see everyone’s dedication. I am always impressed by people who can draw every single day! There are actually 1,226 posts tagged on Instagram for #Melotober22! I highly recommend following both of these artists on Instagram to build your network and most importantly, have fun!
How do art challenges help artists gain exposure?
For the sake of discussion, I will continue to use the most recent art challenge I personally participated in to show you in real time how your participation can directly affect how many people see your creativity. The image to the left is from my personal business account dashboard on my Instagram account @korynne.designs. You can see I had some really great engagement right before Christmas when I was sharing some of the Christmas designs I added to my Etsy shop. After the 15th, I really slowed down on posting due to the Holidays. The next spike you see is exactly January 1st, the first day of the #snowyjanuarick art challenge!
Of course, it isn’t as simple as just posting your artwork and calling it good. The real value in joining an art challenge is by engaging with other artists just like yourself! This is why is is so very important to not only tag the original creator of the art challenge but you also want to ensure you type in the name of the art challenge you are participating in, with a hashtag. For our example, I used the following in my post:
Day 4: Bath Time #snowyjanuarick art challenge hosted by @rickytheunicorn
Super cute yuzu capybara bath time! I absolutely love these cute little critters! Have you ever googled pictures of capybaras bathing in hot springs with yuzu fruit? 🥰
#yuzu#bathtime#yuzubath#capybara#cutedrawing#cuteillustration#artchallenge#januaryartchallenge#january#illustrator#japanesetea#kawaii#kawaiistyle
kORYNNE.DESIGNS
I also highly recommend using relevant hashtags at the end of your post so your art reached the right people. You don’t want to tag something that is irrelevant to your unique style so be sure to delve into who your audience truly is and why they would like your art or brand. As you can see in my example above, I used elements of the actual design I created such as the content, style and who may be looking at illustrations, cute drawing etc.
Tips for making the most of art challenges:
There are so many ways to be creative when sharing your artwork for art challenges and ensure you not only grow your audience but that you reach the right people. Here are just a few of my personal favorites but honestly, you can do so much to showcase your unique style so don’t be afraid to try something new!
- Make sure to use the search bar to search the hashtag for the art challenge you joined and follow that tag to see what other artists created and spark a conversation with them!
- Get creative and post behind the scenes of your process to your Instagram Stories, Highlights and Reels. *Pro-tip: Remember, IG Stories are great for updating your current followers and Reels are to engage Non-Followers. Highlights are a wonderful way to archive milestones, new products or in my case, art challenges! Highlights are great to catch new followers up on all your hard work and get to know you better.
- Get more involved with other creators that are participating in the same art challenge. Leave a comment, follow, leave a like or a share – trust me they will appreciate it. It is also a good way to get more exposure and maybe even a follow back!
- I know I said it before, but use relevant hashtags. If your drawing consists of varied pastries, you probably don’t want to tag #hiking – I know its a silly example but try something like #foodlover, #bakedgoods, #foodart – you get the idea. It can also be helpful to pay attention to the number of times a hashtag has been used for some of the descriptive hashtags. Generally speaking, the more there are, the more people are searching for those terms.
- Make sure to share your videos, art posts and products on other social media platforms with the same relevant tags and descriptions to boost SEO. If you sell any of your designs or artwork this is more important than if you are a creator. I love to share videos on Tiktok, Facebook or even Youtube Shorts. For posts I generally use Facebook and my LinkedIn account since I get freelance work on y LinkedIn but you could also use Twitter. For any products you sell, I highly recommend Facebook, Pinterest ( especially for Etsy shops) and Twitter. * Pro-tip: Canva Pro is great to keep all your posts in one place with the easy ability to resize for various platforms.
- My biggest and most important tip is honestly to just have fun delving into your art. No matter what your style is, the number of likes and follows are not as important as how you feel during your creative process. Trust me, there are people in this world who love all kinds of art so just use this as encouragement to get out there and share your unique creations with the world – you got this!
Conclusion
Joining an art challenge can help you with creative breakthroughs, polish your portfolio or even help you discover your art style and in return your audience! You will meet other creatives and add them to your network to further fuel your inner muse. All true artists can look at another art style or perspective and use it to create their own unique ideas – it’s what art is all about.
Don’t be afraid to try new things, get out of your comfort zone and connect with the art community on social media. I think you might be surprised at how supportive artists and small business owners are! It’s a great opportunity to learn new things like using color pallets you wouldn’t normally use or deciding how to illustrate the daily prompt “resolution”.
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