Author: Janice on Cape Ann

Someone mentioned football season starting? We can do that — here’s the challenge: think wide, think panoramic format. (Okay, not the easiest thing to take a picture of, but give it a whirl.)

Rules are simple:

• Color or black & white
• 2D or 3D
• Any surface, any medium
• Draw from direct observation preferred where possible

Deadline for this one is September 19; send to RNAC.workshops@gmail.com. Send along a title or I’ll have to make one up.

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Enough summer laziness. We’re back! This week’s challenge is to merge the 2D world and the 3D world. It’s easier than you think — or not.

Rules are simple, as ever:

• Color or black & white
• 2D and 3D
• Any surface, any medium
• Draw from direct observation preferred where possible

You have until September 12 for this one. Send submissions to RNAC.workshops@gmail.com with your title or I’ll make one up!

Big Tiny is one of our major fundraisers for Rocky Neck Art Colony and you can help make it a success. The Challenge is to make a gorgeous image in a tiny 5×5″  painting, photograph, mixed media or print. This will be a piece you can deliver to us per instructions below for inclusion in the fundraiser.

Here are your marching orders:

• After matting the visible area must be 5 inches x 5 inches.
• Work on a 6“x6″ piece of watercolor paper, bristol board or photo paper. Need paper? We can provide 6”x6” 100 lb. Bristol stock. Call Mary Ann McCormick at 978-317-6803 to arrange a pick-up time at 4 Hatch Way on Rocky Neck (not the Cultural Center). 
• All 2D media accepted, including photography, collage, drawing and painting.
• We do the matting. Just remember the visible area must be 5×5”.
• Sign the BACK, not the front. One of the thrills of Big Tiny is the buyer doesn’t know who did the piece until after purchase!
• Submission Deadline Update: Final Art due September 7. No excuses now! Please deliver or mail artworks in protective packaging to Mary Ann McCormick, 4 Hatch Way, Gloucester MA 01930.  Artwork pickups can also be arranged.

See the links below to YouTube videos for some inspiration on how to make your tiny masterpiece:

Barbara Moody

Ruth Mordecai

Kat Masella

Loren Doucette

The Big Tiny is all-virtual this year, so people can view and buy online. The website (we’ll post the URL here when it’s up) will be live for three days, Oct. 10 to 12. The artwork will sell for $150 the first day, $100 the second and $50 on the third. We are also offering framed Triptychs of three pieces that go together.

If you want, you can send your image here to Art Challenge for posting (I won’t be running your caption info): RNAC.workshops@gmail.com. More important, though, is to send the completed piece in to the address above by August 31.

Here’s another idea: Repurpose some of your past Art Challenge work for Big Tiny. As long as it has the all-important 5”x5” internal dimension, you’re probably good to go.

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Create an image incorporating distortion as the essential visual strategy. What is distortion? Morphing, blurring, stretching. You play with it.

Rules as ever:

• Color or black & white
• 2D or 3D
• Any surface, any medium
• Draw from direct observation preferred where possible

I’m going to take a bit of a break for August and only update every two weeks (the Fortnighly Challenge?). So you have until August 15 for this one. Send submissions to RNAC.workshops@gmail.com with your title or I’ll make one up!

For this Challenge, you will need a fortune cookie (real, virtual, dreamt). Make an image triggered by your fortune. But, wait there’s more: Many fortune cookies’ fortunes have a feature on the back “Learn One Chinese Word.” An extra challenge is to somehow reference that word in the drawing. (If you’re looking for some inspiration, start here.)

Rules are simple:

• Color or black & white
• 2D or 3D
• Any surface, any medium
• Draw from direct observation preferred where possible

Send your image to RNAC.Workshops@gmail.com along with the title of your piece. Deadline for this Challenge is August 1.

Some energetic souls here at Rocky Neck Art Colony are looking to put together a Colony cookbook. We’re gathering recipes, and we need art too. Focusing on ingredients is easier than, say, painting a salad, so take your favorites as inspiration—eggs, apples, walnuts, even broccoli, maybe a whole pie —and paint/draw/photograph at will.

Rules are simple:

• Color or black & white
• 2D or 3D
• Any surface, any medium
• Draw from direct observation preferred where possible.

Send your image to RNAC.Workshops@gmail.com along with the title of the piece. Deadline for Ingredients is July 26 (extended — I’ll be away the 20th to the 23rd and won’t be able to post your pictures on those dates).

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Sure, it’s easy to draw a model or a tree, something static. Want a real challenge? Pick a moving target. I happen to be partial to chickens, but birds, waves, dogs, people at the beach: anything’s fair game. You’ll be training your eye to get the essentials — fast.

Rules are simple:

• Color or black & white
• 2D or 3D
• Any surface, any medium
• Draw from direct observation preferred where possible.

Send your image to RNAC.Workshops@gmail.com along with the title of the piece. Deadline for Fast Sketch is July 11.

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Phew — glad that Mineral Challenge is over (though if you have a piece to submit, you still can). This week’s Challenge is way more fun: Create a self-portrait that does NOT include your face.

The rules are simple:

• Color or black & white
• 2D or 3D
• Any surface, any medium
• Draw from direct observation preferred where possible.

Send your image to RNAC.workshops@gmail.com. Send in a title or I’ll come up with my own. Deadline for Faceless Self-Portrait is July 4 (July 4th?? Already??).

Figures it would be Number 13: Mineral?? According to Encyclopedia Britannica, a mineral is “a naturally occurring homogeneous solid with a definite chemical compositionand a highly ordered atomic arrangement; it is usually formed by inorganic processes.”

Got that? Me neither.

You can Google “mineral images”— get out the paint box!

If you played along with Animal and Vegetable, this Mineral should be part of that series—or not. Try your best!

• Color (black & white if you think you can!)
• 2D or 3D
• Any surface, any medium
• Draw from direct observation preferred where possible.

Send your image to RNAC.workshops@gmail.com. Send in a title or I’ll come up with my own. Deadline for Mineral is June 28.

Following last week’s Animal Challenge, this week it’s Vegetable’s turn. You did establish a theme for all your images, right (remember, next week it’s the trio’s conclusion with Mineral)? Yeah, I didn’t either. That shouldn’t stop you, though.

Simple rules:

• Color or black & white
• 2D or 3D
• Any surface, any medium
• Draw from direct observation preferred where possible.

Send your image to RNAC.workshops@gmail.com. Send in a title or I’ll come up with one of my own! Deadline for Vegetable is June 21.