Forum Competition?
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I haven't had the chance to be around on the forums for a while and I noticed that the monthly competitions are no more. I wondered if there had been any attempt at just making a community run challenge each month? I feel that taking part really helped to motivate myself and it really did push me to think of new ideas and styles. It was also great to see the work of so many others that helped to inspire and provide a good window into other people's methods.
Would anyone have any interested in taking part again if it was just a prompt for each month with the winners chosen by the group. No prizes, just a challenge to keep people on their toes?
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@Gary-Wilkinson I'd be interested in that!
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@Gary-Wilkinson I feel you. I thrive on deadlines. I've been drawing almost every day, and watching classes and all that fun stuff, but I really feel that I miss the push of a prompt I had to solve the problem to, and a deadline. That helped me grow more than anything else. I joined the scbwi this month and I'm participating in their monthly challenge, and I also have a jar full of prompts that were submitted to a Facebook poll I put up. But I'd love more!
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@Gary-Wilkinson yeah. Not sure what happened. It moved to a different webpage for a bit, but then transitioned into monthly critiques of art.
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@kylebeaudette I think part of the issue was that the same people were winning all of the time. I’m not opposed to competition, and trying to get better with every entry (that was the whole purpose of entering). But when people who are agented and getting jobs are getting in every month, they’d get to the critique portion and have nothing to say. It left those who were hopeful of the critique and guidance not getting any. So they switched it to how to fix your art. Which, while it’s helpful to watch, I’m not as motivated to plan my schedule around it, and haven’t really tuned in as much as I should.
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@Gary-Wilkinson I miss the monthly prompt. Every piece on my portfolio site is somehow related to an SVS prompt. I know that we tried to do a community based prompt when they stopped doing the monthly thing in the past but it did not get people excited in the same way. A community led prompt might be a great place for SVS instructors to get “ how to fix my art” material though…..I wonder if they would be into that? Not a competition so much as a community learning experience. I don’t know. If you run a prompt in any way you think would be good I would be interested for sure.
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@AngelinaKizz yeah, there's something exciting about a competition.
I think if you win three you could 'graduate' out of something. -
Hi @Gary-Wilkinson, yes! Count me in.
My entire portfolio was created based the monthly prompts.
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I really really miss the monthly competitions. I would absolutely be interested in taking part, even if sometimes it's just to show up and vote/give feedback!
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Great to hear such positive response. How about next month let's do a little test run?
Not sure of the format exactly, but perhaps do a community vote for the top 3 or 5 and have the winner choose the next prompt. It would be good to critique winning submissions, although i'm not sure how to best go about that.
If anyone has any suggestions then i'm all ears.
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Yes please, I work best with a deadline and loved seeing all the other”takes” on the prompts.
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@Gary-Wilkinson I'm willing to bet we could get something going with google meet and some volunteer judges. I mean, at the very worst it can just turn into a fun SVS hangout/critique session
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I think I hear @braydin-hawlette volunteering.
It does sound like a great idea, both for personal development and community relations. Excited to see what happens... -
@Gary-Wilkinson count me in! We would have to figure out a way of setting up an effective poll. Maybe everyone picks their top 5 and the top 5 from that go on to a general election where everyone votes for number 1. Or maybe number 1 is whichever gets picked the most as top 5..?
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@Gary-Wilkinson oh I missed this where you literally said almost the same thing, haha. Test run next month sounds great.
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I think I just heard on their latest podcast they were missing the Critique Arena themselves a bit. I'm a bit bummed it went away as well, I get that it can be a lot of work putting those together so I don't blame them with everything else they have going on. Also, I haven't been around long enough to know if certain people were either winning or placing more often than others and it got a bit old or not. But even that can push some people to want to get themselves into the next tier. I suppose as long as it doesn't become a students main focus, to win that challenge, as I don't believe they put all this together for that, Haha.
But it would be interesting to look into putting something together ourselves. Hmmn.
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Like many of you, I thrive on prompts/competitions and deadlines. Although I wasn't around for the Critique Arena (I wish they were still doing it!) I would love there to be something along these lines again. Count me in on whatever the group decides.
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I haven't been active much recently on the forums just doing my own stuff but I've been finally getting enough time back to lurk and found @Gary-Wilkinson's post here and I 100% concur and miss it a lot.
Couldn't help but notice July came and went without anything happening (at least that I saw :P). I'm willing to put effort into something.
Now that summer's over it seems like a good time to put some time into it. Maybe a few of us can get into a Discord meeting and brainstorm some ideas and actually formulate a plan?
