How To Host An Art Challenge On Instagram (Patreon)

Hello my lovelies!

I announced on Instagram yesterday that I’m co-hosting a Christmassy art challenge with some other artists in December and so I thought today would be a good opportunity to chat about art challenges and how you can host your own because I know I was a bit unsure when I hosted my first challenge!

The challenge I just announced is called Cozy Christmas Challenge and it’s Christmas themed (obviously) which I love because festive things make me happy. I’m co-hosting with four other lovely artists and if you want to join in then I would love to see what you create from the prompts.

There’s one prompt per week over four weeks, all you need to do is interpret the prompt (any way you like!), illustrate something with your wonderfully creative ideas, post it to Instagram during the dates for that prompt (or you can keep it to yourself and just join in from a distance) and check out all of the other Christmassy illustrations that people have created. It’s going to be fun!

BUT what I really wanted to talk to you about today is hosting your own art challenges on Instagram. They’re so fun and I love seeing all of the creative ideas that come out of them, so let’s break down how to host your own challenge.

Why Host A Challenge?

You probably already know that I enjoy art challenges on Instagram because I just think they’re such a great way to be involved in the art community, make friends, and be seen. Instagram is a social media platform so it’s designed to be used for social engagement and I find that growth comes so much easier when you engage with the community.

Being a challenge host gives you the opportunity to get your name and art out on the platform because everyone who joins in on your challenge is going to tag you in their post (assuming you make that a condition of entering) and their followers will then have a chance to be exposed to your account. If you're looking to grow your Instagram account then hosting a challenge is a great way to gain exposure to potential new followers and it shows that you're a proactive member of the art community.

Common Challenge Formats

The two most common art challenges I see on Instagram are:

Draw This In Your Style Challenges

You might see it abbreviated to ‘DTIYS’, these challenges invite you to redraw the host’s illustration in your own style. They may have some simple rules or a deadline, but usually you can participate in any medium and can get really creative with it as long as your version is recognisable as being a redraw of the original.

and

Prompt Lists

These are lists of prompts that usually have a set date to them, and you’re free to come up with anything you like inspired by the prompts. They usually have a theme (like ours is for Christmas) and can be as frequent as one per day throughout the challenge or as slow as one per week.

I’ve hosted some DTIYS challenges before but the Cozy Christmas Challenge will be the first prompt list challenge I’ve done, and also the first challenge that I’ve co-hosted with other artists which is exciting!

Which Challenge Format To Choose?

Ok let’s break down the differences in hosting a DTIYS vs a Prompt List.

When you host a DTIYS challenge you draw one illustration, post it, and wait for others to join in with their own versions. You might put a deadline on the entries or you might not and just leave it open forever. Then you’ll want to be engaging with everyone who joins your challenge, and maybe sharing the entries in your stories to remind people that you’re hosting the challenge and to show them that if they enter they could also get shared in your stories.

When you host a prompt list, you need to come up with prompts within a certain theme, and decide how many and over what duration the prompts will run. Then you’ll want to tell people about your challenge a little bit in advance so they can get excited about it and start thinking of ideas. Once the challenge time comes, you’ll need to create your own illustration for each prompt and post it, and then engage with the people who are joining in with their own illustrations. You’ll maybe want to post some of the entries in your stories as well. Then you’ll do that for each prompt - post your own illustration, then engage with the other entries.

Which format you choose is totally up to you, I think they’re both fun! In my opinion DTIYS challenges require less work because it’s just one illustration that you need to create for it, whereas prompt lists will be several. Prompt lists spark lots of creative ideas which is always fun to see, whereas DTIYS challenges are really interesting to see how other creatives would draw the same illustration.

Prompt lists build a nice community of people who are all along for the ride, but might put some people off who don’t want to commit to doing lots of illustrations. Have a think about what kind of experience you want to have and how much time you can spend engaging with the challenge once it’s live.

Things To Consider For An Enjoyable Challenge

If you want as many people as possible to enjoy your challenge, then you’ll want to consider your audience and what they might like. It’s also a good idea to consider the timing, because if there are lots of other challenges happening or people are just coming to the end of a big, popular challenge like Inktober, they might be too tired to do yours.

If you’re hosting a DTIYS challenge, think about the image you’re drawing and whether your audience would want to create their own version of it. I try to draw things that are not too complex (which can be intimidating for new artists) but also not too simple (it is a challenge after all). Consider drawing something that really stands out in a feed to catch people’s attention, and something with enough character so that it’s different to other challenges.

For a prompt list, think about what theme would excite your audience and entice them to take part. Probably the most important thing in my mind is how many prompts to include and over how long. At the moment I prefer prompt lists that are spread out with just one prompt per week so I have time to enjoy the challenge, but sometimes new artists who are trying to build an art habit will like challenges that have more frequent prompts like every day for a few weeks.

There’s no right or wrong way to host a challenge, but consider what would bring you joy from it and what would bring your audience joy from it. If you’re not sure, ask them! Put some polls in your Instagram stories and ask people questions about the challenge you’re thinking of doing (this also builds community because it allows people to be involved and get excited about the challenge!).

Hosting Alone Or Co-hosting With Other Artists

So now you have a challenge in mind but you’re not sure whether to host it alone or with other artists!

Usually DTIYS challenges are hosted alone but I have seen some cool collaborations of artists hosting together. The prompt lists I see, though, are really split and seem to be just as often hosted alone as they are with other artists.

The benefit of hosting alone is that you don’t have to consider anyone else or co-ordinate people, you can just come up with your own ideas, create the challenge when you like and post things your own way. It does mean though that you’re the sole face of the challenge and all of the engaging with participants comes down to you alone.

The benefit of hosting with other artists is that you can pool ideas together and collaborate on something creative, plus you get the benefit of being exposed to each artist’s audience. Personally I think this is most effective with just a handful of artists (maybe 3-6) rather than more because things can feel a little overwhelming when there are lots of hosts, but perhaps that’s just me! Sharing the hosting duties with others means you don’t have to engage with everyone all of the time because there are others helping with that, but it also means you’ll have to agree on the creative details of the challenge and may have to compromise if not everyone is on the same page.

Things That Might Be Holding You Back

I had some reservations when I started thinking about hosting my own challenges, and maybe you do too. They were things like:

What if nobody joins in?

What if I do it wrong?

What if the other art is better than mine?

Ultimately, none of these things matter, because you could say ‘so what?’ to all of them. Nothing bad will happen if nobody joins in, it’s not likely anyone will even notice and you can just try again another time. You can’t host a challenge wrong because it’s your challenge, you can change the rules if you want, and if you think the other art is better than yours then what a great learning opportunity that will be!

A much more realistic and healthy question to ask is “what if it goes well and I have a nice time and find a few new artists?”. Don’t let limiting beliefs hold you back from giving something a go!

Getting Ready To Post

Once you’ve created your challenge you need to put it out in the world for others to see it! There are a few things that you’ll want to include in your challenge post that might be different to a normal post:

General information about the challenge (why are you hosting it, what’s it about?)

Any rules/requirements for participating in the challenge

Any important dates like deadlines

A challenge hashtag so entries can be found

Having a challenge hashtag is really important for finding entries and for participants to engage with each other. When you choose a challenge hashtag, try and find something that is fairly easy to read and remember, and choose a hashtag that doesn’t already have any posts. This is often fairly easy if you incorporate your name into it, some examples of challenge hashtags I’ve used before are: #mimimoo50k #mimimoocottagechallenge #mimimoo20k

Make sure you include all the details for people who want to join, like whether they need to tag you, who can join in (I always say that any medium is welcome in case people aren’t sure), how long they have to get their entry done, whether you’ll be sharing the entries in your stories etc.

And lastly, make sure you’re building excitement about your challenge with lots of positive language (and lots of emojis if that’s your thing!).

Feel free to use the example below of my most recent DTIYS challenge as a reference for your own challenge captions if you like.

Enjoy The Creativity

Now that you’ve put your challenge out into the world, you can sit back and watch people start to participate! I love looking through entries to the challenges I host, there’s so much creativity and it’s always really fun to see. If not as many people join in as you hoped, try not to feel disappointed about it because there are loads of reasons why your challenge may have slipped under the radar. I find that having a strong community helps because if you have positive relationships with other artists you’re more likely to participate in each other’s challenges (I know that’s the case for me!).

Have you hosted a challenge on Instagram before or are you thinking of doing one? I’d love to know!❤