Dear Wonderful, Creative You:

Art challenges provide a wonderful burst of inspiration, accountability, and community. But they all end eventually, and to really dig into your own art practice, you can’t always be responding to a challenge. So what do you do when the art challenge is over?

To answer this, I want to back up a bit and talk about why I create art challenges for my students, and small art challenges in particular.

If you did the prep class for the Inchie Challenge, A Little Art Every Day, (which for a limited time you can still get here) you might remember that I spoke about the purposeful journey that I was creating for you. I want to talk about that again for a minute:

The whole reason I made The Inchie Challenge is because I understand how many roadblocks stand between you and your daily art practice. It’s really hard. It’s my job to make art, and even I struggle sometimes. But I have the benefit of having a lot of tools. So I wanted to share them with you!

I created a challenge and a prep class that would help you to prepare for and practice making art daily. I made it short, easy, and fun, because we have to eliminate those barriers, right? Of course I love that you create with me during the 12-day challenge, but my goal is for you to keep creating every day.

Let’s review the structure that you set up for yourself:

• Pre-cut a BIG stack of 2 x 2 inch watercolor squares
• Use the Idea Generation worksheet to come up with your own word prompts
• Show up and create each day for 12 days.

You did it, and now you can keep this going!

Here’s some ideas for you to keep making art every day:

• Create an art prompt jar. Revisit your Idea Generation Worksheet and create a BIG list of words for art prompts. Don’t overthink this. Just write. Cut these into little papers and keep them in a jar on your desk. Each day, sit down, pick a random paper, and create an inchie based on that prompt.
• Pre-prep materials. Cut another GIANT stack of 2 x 2 inch watercolor papers. (Like 50 – 100. YES!)
• Keep your portable art kit on hand. Keep some inchies, a waterproof pen, and perhaps a portable watercolor set and brush in a zip pouch and carry it in your bag. Sketching, not scrolling, right? (I have to remind myself too!)
• Create many inchies based on the same prompt. You’ll improve your skills, and refine your ideas.
• Collage with your inchies. You can cut them up and combine them in surprising ways.
• Create backgrounds with watercolor washes on some inchies so you don’t face a blank canvas.

If that still doesn’t feel structured enough, you might love to check out the ​BIG ART class,​ as I lead you step by step through 12 beautiful inchie projects that build to big art pieces.

I’d love to hear about your experience since the challenge in the comments.

Creatively Yours,

Amy