[Art Writing Challenge] Travel Magazine Challenge

Travel challenge image

This challenge is for artists and writers.

Challenge runs from July 8 – 21, 2019.

You've been commissioned by Mr. Joergen Haybale, owner of the well known travel magazine*, Traveling Adventurer, to do an editorial illustration or write an article on [insert some awesome place you'd like to travel to here] to help inspire adventurers.

*a magazine is like a web page printed out.

For artists

Our growth as artists depends not just on our ability to draw and paint but also on our ability to see. The wonderful characters we love to draw and paint don't just exist in a white void. They go places. So being able to draw and paint landscapes is important for our development as well rounded artists.

In this challenge we'll be working on developing our observation skills. There are lots of things to observe in the world around us, but we're going to focus specifically on observing shapes and values of landscapes.

Due to a horrific accident at Mr. Joergen's printing factory (a Pillager raid at his village), colored ink is not currently available so the illustration must be created in grayscale.

Challenge instructions

  1. Decide on a location that fascinates you or you'd like to adventure to.

  2. Take your own photograph or find a color photograph of that place. Try to find something that has a wide range of lights and darks.

  3. Copy the photograph in a medium of your choosing using black, white, and grays. Focus on observing the values and shapes.

  4. Post your artwork by July 21st for 100 XP with the tag travelchallenge. Max 10 entries.

Livestream Schedule

To help you learn the concepts of observing value and shapes, I'll be doing a series of instructional livestreams. I'll update this page with links to the recordings as they become available.

  • Wednesday, Jul 10, 4pm PST – Understanding and observing values – Watch the replay

  • Thursday, Jul 11, 4pm PST – Understanding and observing shapes – Watch the replay

  • Tuesday, Jul 16, 4pm PST – Live demo of completing illustration start to finish part 1

  • Wednesday, Jul 17, 4pm PST – Live demo of completing illustration start to finish part 2

Watch the art livestreams here

For writers

Whether you write fiction or non-fiction, incorporating the five senses into your writing is important to help the reader be emmersed in the experience. Here we'll be focusing on research and describing the five senses.

Challenge instructions

  1. Decide on a location that fascinates you or you'd like to adventure to.

  2. Spend the time to research that location. Watch videos, read articles, search for pictures. Try to understand what that place might look, sound, smell, feel, and taste like.

  3. Write an article or story that describes what it's like to be there. Consider the audience which is middle-aged, middle class people who love to travel. You can write it from the perspective of one of your original characters.

  4. Post your work by July 21st Note: I can't give XP for writing submissions yet but if you reply to this news post with a link to your writing entry, I can add XP as soon as the feature is released.


 

Some optional ideas and thought starters

Do you have questions about this challenge? Just reply or ask in the discord server and I'll help you out. This one is more academic and unlike other challenges we've done in the past so I'd love to hear from you what you think of it!