St. Patrick’s Day Challenges

Happy St. Patrick’s Day to all!

     Originally, I’d started this in a different blog with the intention of releasing each of the four parts separately, and had posted part 1 of this 4 part challenge. But I realized that entire blog was sort of redundant and it’s categories needed to be hacked up and scavenged elsewhere on bentrealm.com
     Obviously it’s too late to post or start working on merchandise art and shop items for this year’s green-centric holiday. Yet somehow I always feel like doing holiday themed artwork in the week surrounding said holiday, it’d be a shame to waste that creative feeling simply because it’s too late to put said artwork out. So, here I thought the challenge then would be in planning next St. Patrick’s Day’s arts, crafts and related thingamajigs.
     This round of challenges are then mostly for artists, crafters and various shopkeepers, maybe writer’s too. There are four parts to this round and I will post results once I have a decent amount.
You can share the results of any or all of the parts of the challenge or hoard them like a king plotting his next take-over.

Part One

A Basic word and image association game.
What is associated with the St. Patrick’s holiday? I’ll kick it off.

• The color green
• Clovers, especially of the 4 leaf kind
• Ireland & Irish motifs
• Luck
• Leprechauns, rainbows, pots of gold, drinking (I’m not a drinker myself), partying, and so on, mostly stereo-typical things here.

Are there things that I’ve left out?
What else could be associated with it?
The challenge lies in trying to come up with less common associations or even inventing new ones.

Part Two

Info to use to make a shopkeeper guide.
Let’s discuss best practices for St. Patrick’s themed promotions for art, crafts, shops, and related writing & blog posts. I’ll then input the collaborative info into Shopkeeper’s guide to St. Patrick’s Day as a resource for us.

• When is the best time to begin publicly promoting your St. Patrick’s themed items? How early is too early? How close to St. Patty’s is too late?
• When is the best time to start working on projects for the holiday, whether they be artwork, stories, blog posts, jewelry or random products? Obviously the answer is dependant upon how elaborate and numerous the projects are as well as the project types.
• What sort of projects work well?
• What kind don’t work well?
• What sort of themed promos are particularly suited to this holiday?
• I’m sure there’s more items that ought to be covered for a shopkeeper’s guide, so by all means include other related thoughts. Stuff from part 1 of this challenge will be included in that guide.

Part Three


Do some advanced planning for next year’s St. Patrick's activities while the holiday is still fresh in your mind.

• Plan out some promotional ideas and set a schedule for them.
• Plan out a few related projects for a nice head start, and then either finish them quickly, over the coming year, or finish them closer to when you want them completed by.
• If you’re doing artwork, draw up multiple layouts
• If you’re doing a story, build the frame for it, outline the basics and maybe even draft up much of the plot. Either finish it or let it stew.
• If you’re doing just blog posts, brainstorm and do research.
• Brainstorm for a party.
• You get the idea.

I expect the early planning would make the next year’s themed events far more mellow to set up. Not only that but being right in the midst of the holiday now it’s easier to see and think up related material.

Part Four


Complete some related project.
A drawing, painting, blog entry, poem, short story, you name it, but complete one project, if you choose to do this part of the challenge. Feel free to share it in the comments if you post your project online.

Well that’s all four parts finished. Don’t know why I was thinking to post them separately before. What are your thoughts on this challenge? Who’s going to participate? Who’s looking forward to future challenges? What categories would you like challenges done up for?

 













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