Ilkeston Arts and Camera Club
Previous Challenges
Angle - May 2021
This is an art and photography joint challenge. Ideas could be arranging a composition so that it's not seen from the angle it is normally, for example, a portrait could be drawn from behind, concentrating on the back of the head and the hair, or looking up at a subject from the ground.
The subject could be an object that contains many angles or something could be drawn in a geometric style. You could try creating a drawing using a ruler or set square.
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https://risphotograph.blogspot.com/2013/02/5-kinds-angle-of-view-in-photography.html
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May Day - May 2021
"The earliest known May celebrations appeared with the Floralia, festival of Flora, the Roman goddess of flowers" - Wikipedia
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Perhaps you'd like to focus on the May flowers for this challenge, either in your own garden or in a nearby park or beauty spot. Or maybe an idea could be to focus on the traditions of May Day. This could be the more traditional elements like markets and maypoles, or the more modern bank holiday pursuits such as beer gardens and trips to IKEA!
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The Camera Never Lies - June 2021
There are many photo editing softwares available and although we use the term "Photoshopping" many of the cheaper versions of photo editing softwares have similar capabilities. This challenge is to create a composite photo, to create a scene from one or more images and to make the joins as seamless as possible. This is where you can experiment with blending, matching the levels of lighting, shadows, saturation and contrast to make it look as close to an original "untampered" photograph as possible!
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https://fstoppers.com/composite/how-convincingly-composite-images-photoshop-169744
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https://www.clickinmoms.com/blog/how-convincing-head-swap-photoshop-video-tutorial/
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https://www.amateurphotographer.co.uk/technique/create-killer-composites-127073
Pen to Paper - June 2021
In this art challenge, the main part of your work should be in ink. Perhaps you can sketch lightly in pencil first or if you're a bit braver you could dive straight in!
Biro's can be surprisingly versatile with different pressure applied, or you might prefer more of a watercolour effect with ink from a bottle. Water can have a different effect on different pens, some are waterproof, some aren't so it's worth testing first!
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You might want to make the challenge a bit harder on yourself by drawing with pen but not lifting the pen from the paper until the picture is finished, this creates some nice line effects, but it takes some extra concentration! You can even add in some powdered ink effects using Brusho (yes, we'll allow it!)
David Bowie by artist Vince Low
In The Summertime - July 2021
We're giving you the whole month of July to complete this challenge so hopefully you can find a day of nice weather to get outdoors with your cameras and sketchbooks/ canvases and capture the British summertime. Perhaps you'd like a rural or urban setting, capturing a nature reserve or a barbeque on the patio. One idea could be to recreate a seaside postcard, which could be done as a painting/ drawing or a photograph if you can find the volunteers (perhaps steer clear of the saucier ones!)
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https://www.postalmuseum.org/blog/the-seaside/
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https://elephant.art/the-great-british-seaside/
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https://blog.bridgemanimages.com/blog/here-comes-the-sun-famous-paintings-of-summer
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https://www.outdoorpainter.com/overcoming-difficulties-painting-en-plein-air-tips/
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Collage - July 2021
The title itself is fairly self explanatory, but we'd like you to create a collage and this is open to many options! Think about the materials you'd like to use, do you want the collage to be similar in style or quite contrasting in terms of colour and scale.
Photographers, this is a different challenge to the one in June, this time you don't have to convince us that it is one seamless photo, it can be jarring, and you can use different effects in photo editing to create some interesting images. Perhaps play with the hues and saturations, or use different filters.
You can choose images that link together somehow, to tell a story or choose objects that are completely contrasting. Consider texture and the composition of the different pieces. Do you want to create an entirely new image made up of smaller ones?
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https://www.upcyclist.co.uk/2018/03/collage-art-recycled-paper/
Surreal collage by Max Ernst
Political satire collage by Cold War Steve
Child's Play - August 2021
This is an opportunity to have fun and try out things that you might not have done in years! Perhaps you could return to the art techniques you used as a child, maybe make some potato prints, finger painting, glueing pasta and glitter to card, making salt dough.
Perhaps you'd like to design a colouring book picture or a dot-to-dot of one of your own artworks!
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There might be a family member you could work with. Perhaps the child could draw something and you could adapt the drawing into something of your own, then try it vice versa, to see how they can "improve" your work!
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Maybe the title could be used simply as the subject matter. Children playing or focusing on the toys and activities themselves, photographs of a local park, some swings, jumpers for goalposts.... (please gain permission from any parents around before photographing children, and grown ups for that matter!)
Or perhaps the title could be construed differently, child's play as being something simple to do, or being young at heart. If you want to portray a group of adults playing Twister then go for it!
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Retro - August 2021
This is a more specific theme, and related to portraying something from the past or in the style of something from the past. For artists, you might consider fashions and trends from the recent past, 1960's 70's even the 90's is considered retro (I feel old!)
It could be an object or a famous scene, and it might be worth looking into the artwork from the period you want to represent too. If you want to represent the 1960's you may want to try out a Warhol style screen print, or a Peter Blake style pop art collage (see Sgt Pepper)
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Photographers, if you are able, you might want to get your hands on some vintage photography equipment to have a go, or just to use digital effects to create the similar styles. You could also just take the theme to be the subject matter.
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https://www.befunky.com/learn/vintage-photo-effects/
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2020 Art Challenges
Socially Distanced Portrait
The idea behind this challenge is to try to, as much as possible, recreate a live portrait session. This is a regular part of the club programme, to have the occasional sitter for drawing and photography. If you have a member of your household that can sit for you, you can do that, or if you are in contact with someone over Zoom or the like, that is also possible. It can be in any medium of your choice and it can be in quick sketches of various subjects, or a longer sessional painting, the choice is yours.
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If you want to see how a portrait session over the internet can work, check out the videos of Jonathan Yeo, a well renowned portrait artist, with the assistance of some celebrity volunteer sitters:
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https://www.jonathanyeo.com/page_facetime_portraits
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If you can buddy up with a fellow artist and take turns and give each other tips and feedback, that's even better! Please let us know how you get on!
The Sky's the Limit
We want to see your skies! From stormy to clear, day or night. You can choose any medium you like, work en plein air or from photographs, or just your imagination!
If you want to see some skies for inspiration, visit our resources page for ideas and references.
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You can also visit the page of Paula Hallam, a regular demonstrating artist at the club who has a great command of atmosphere and colour in her paintings of skies. https://www.paulahallam.co.uk/
What's your view?
We've probably been stuck at home a lot more since the pandemic, so we'd like to see what you've been looking at? Do you have a nice view on a regular walk that you take, or have you been staring at your desk as you work from home? This can be created in any style you like? Perhaps you could make a collage of the things you have on your desk, or a montage of the scenes on your regular walk. A window can make a useful frame for the view of your garden or the street outside. If you're a keyworker, maybe you could create an image of your workplace. There are a lot of options and it would be great to see how differently we have seen the world throughout lockdown.
2020 Photography Challenges
Golden Hour
When the sun is coming up or going down and you get this beautiful golden light which transforms everything it touches! We'd like you to capture scenes bathed in this light. See if you can get an interesting composition, and play around with the effects the light has at these times.
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Surface
The theme for this challenge is "surface". How you interpret this is entirely up to you. You can choose to capture a specific surface, focus on the texture or how the light if affected (shiny, course) You may also decide to capture an image reflected in a surface, or use surfaces that aren't flat to see how the environment is affected, think of convex mirrors or the ripples of a water surface.
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https://www.photopedagogy.com/the-surface-of-things.html
https://digital-photography-school.com/how-to-photograph-reflective-surfaces/
Close Up
This is a chance to experiment with macro photography. For those who haven't done much close up photography, here is some advice:
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https://digital-photography-school.com/getting-started-guide-to-macro-or-close-up-photography/
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Possible subject matters could include flowers, household objects, textured (this challenge could also work well with the "surface" challenge.
2020 Joint Art/Photo Challenges
Abstract
This is a chance to explore the ideas of abstract art/photography. Look at things from a different perspective, abstract shape and form from different subjects and portray this in print or canvas. Steph Coley, a regular demonstrating artist has created a tutorial video on abstract art in the resources page, and there are also other bits of info on abstract there to help.
Still Life
This challenge is fairly self-explanatory, but the idea is to take some objects and compose them in to draw from/ photograph or portray in some other way. You can experiment with different composition and media, lighting effects and the objects could be related in some way or tell a story.
Design a Card
We've aimed this challenge around the Christmas period but of course your greetings card could be for any event at all, or even a more generic design, suitable for all year round. You could either design something directly onto a card (blank cards are sold at craft shops and in more general shops such as The Works) or create something to the correct dimensions to be scaled down to card size.*
Here is something to experiment with different media, for example this would make an ideal project for trying out Lino cut printing, or perhaps try some papercutting or 3D designs.
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https://www.jacksonsart.com/blog/2014/11/07/create-your-own-festive-cards-using-lino-print/
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For the photographers, you might want to create a festive still life display, use the reflection of a bauble or create a wintery scene. If you have photo manipulation software, this might make the ideal challenge to try out new techniques.
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*If you wanted to get your art design printed, I have use Redcliffe Printers before for greetings cards, as they can do single prints, you don't have to buy a batch. There are other printers that can do greetings cards too so if you have any recommendations, please let us know! - Jo
One Colour
With this challenge we want you to focus mainly on one colour. For artists, you can use this opportunity to focus purely on tonal values and this is great practice in working with light and shade. For both photographers and artists, you may want to create an image in black and white with one feature colour to stand out, this is another great opportunity to try any photo editing software you may have.
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https://www.pablopicasso.org/blue-period.jsp
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https://magazine.artland.com/the-monochrome-a-history-of-simplicity-in-painting/
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https://expertphotography.com/monochrome-vs-black-and-white-photography/
Autumn Colours
As the colours of the leaves have changed, it's time to take inspiration from the colours of autumn. You may want to go directly into nature and paint/ colour sketch or photograph the trees and nature, or you may want to focus primarily on the colours, the browns, oranges, yellows and reds and create something different.
Animal Magic
We want to see your animal pictures! You might want to create an image of a pet, or you may want to find something exotic from far off lands to paint or draw or collage! Taking photographs of animals can sometimes be tricky so may prove quite a challenge. Getting them to stay still for a pose can also be tricky, so here are some royalty free images you can use as a reference:
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https://unsplash.com/s/photos/animals
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https://www.exposureguide.com/pet-photography-tips/
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https://www.geofflawrence.com/photographing_animals.html
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