The Value of Responding To Art Challenges

October 21st 2023 I entered my first Art Challenge. It was Cat Coquillettes weekly newsletter art prompt on instagram: @createwithcatcoq

When she responded positively to my submission I nearly fell off my chair. She noted the ‘bright intricate details’ of the art in question and I was shocked that she even noticed it, let alone liked it enough co comment. Cat Coq has been a massive inspiration in my art career since the beginning. Her watercolours are STUNNING, but more than the quality of her work, it was her commercial business sense that impressed me most. Beyond that, she is an incredibly generous artist. She has so many fantastic free resources for artists in surface design. 

Encouraged by her kind words I made a commitment to respond to her weekly art prompts every week. No matter what I was working on or how busy I was or whether the prompt resonated with me, I would submit. I kept showing up again and again. I started to get featured in her newsletter. She highlighted my work repeatedly. 

It wasn’t about the recognition, it was about the value of taking the challenge, interpreting it and using it as a way to drop whatever you were working on and respond to a brief. Many of the challenges inspired ideas for collections, and one in particular  – Summer Cocktails – led to my first licensing deal with my Mediterranean Tipple mini collection which was picked up by wall art giant Stupell. My humble mini collection was expanded to 7 pieces of art on request from the Art Director and landed me in retail giants Wallmart, Bed Bath Beyond, Michaels, Wayfair and Amazon. 

It didn’t stop there. In July 2025 I participated in the mini challenge collection over 4 weeks around the theme ‘Celebration’. Cat organised a live call to highlight some of the finished mini collections and then she announced the winner of a scholarship to her new course The Art Of Collections. And I won! Out of hundreds of designs entered, she chose mine. 

It was a career highlight to be congratulated so genuinely by my fellow artists and it felt like a dream. I think the actual art aside, Cat probably recognised my commitment to the challenges and the fact that I kept showing up. So the value of challenging myself to keep showing up was not just about the art but my commitment to improve and stretch.

 I’ll review the course here on the blog at the end of my final month January 2026.