Announcement – Changes To The 52-Week Art Project

As we dive into the final set of prompts for 2026, I have a few ideas about how we could move forward with this project. Firstly, it feels more like a challenge than a project to me currently, and I’m hoping the new reworked setup for next year will be more like a cohesive project. I’m after something that allows us more freedom, but also some challenge to grow.

Most importantly, I would prefer something that lets participants work on more cohesive collections or series of art since most of us are low on energy or time. I’d like to make the project work for us.

Meaning that what we create for this project can potentially be used for other things, like participating in other challenges throughout the year, or completing a personal project, or even making things to sell.

Basically I don’t want this project to feel like an added activity or chore, but rather rework it so that it can be adjusted to fit whatever we feel inspired to work on in a given season. Let me explain what I’ve been thinking about:

The Current #CH52art Project Overview

• A creative project for those of us who can’t create daily, for whatever reason.
• There is 1 prompt per week to ​interpret in any way & take your time with.
• Use any medium (collage, clay, paint, photography, baking, knitting, lego, fabric, etc)
• You can skip a prompt anytime if needed, your wellbeing comes first. No stress here.

This sounded great to begin with, because we have a whole week to work on one or more pieces and freedom to interpret the prompt however we want to as well as the freedom to skip if we need to.

The downside is that if I only have energy to work on one thing this week or for the next three weeks, I’d have to choose.

Either I skip a couple of weeks on this project or I do this project consistently and potentially never have the energy to work on other things I might want to do.

What if I don’t want to work on a specific prompt or theme, but feel inspired to work on something else completely? What if I really don’t want to skip a week because this year I’m trying hard to be consistent with the things I start. This is what I have been struggling with.

That’s where the idea to rework the 52-week art project came from. I have often found myself inspired to make art, but it wasn’t related to the prompts. And despite not having enough energy to do more than the minimum, I knew I’d feel like I had failed if I skipped a prompt or three.

I know that one of the “rules” I set initially was that we can skip whenever we need to, but, since it’s my own project, I tend to put more pressure on myself to participate every week and I really am trying to be consistent with making art, so I ended up doing the art for the prompts and not much else due to lack of energy and time.

My Personal Struggles Lately

As you can see, I have been thinking a lot about this project lately, especially since my health took a hit the past few weeks and I have been struggling to keep up with even daily life tasks.

Apart from the very minimal daily life activities I need to manage, I also have my French lessons and physio exercises to do, my garden to take care of and this art project which I am committed to – to keep exercising my creative muscles. Also, art is therapy, it’s calming and healing for me.

It might not seem like the project would be too taxing, interpreting one prompt per week is all that’s required, but for me to share my work here on the blog and social media accounts every week, it actually requires quite a lot of extra work on my part and there are other things I would like to do too.

It’s not just making the art, but documenting everything with photos taken throughout the process, then uploading and editing the photos, downloading them from the editing software only to reupload them to my website and finally writing about it all here on the blog.

Don’t get me wrong, I love making art and I love blogging, but it’s extremely difficult to stick to this weekly schedule in my condition. Having a fluctuating chronic illness makes being consistent with anything really difficult and having deadlines apparently also causes me stress.

So having this project take up so much of my time and energy means that there is less left over for other things that I might need or want to do in a week.

Another thing I have noticed is that I don’t love the way that many of the prompts are unrelated. Pivoting from one to the next sometimes feels like creative whiplash. I would prefer a more cohesive theme or concept that would allow for a deeper dive into techniques or mediums and subject matters. Perhaps even being able to create bodies of work, series or collections.

I tend to hyperfixate on one thing for a while before switching gears, so I’d like a bit more time to explore a theme or technique.

I would also appreciate being able to paint or draw whatever I feel inspired to in the moment, rather than being forced to stick to a single prompt.

Having as little energy as I do, I cannot really afford to “waste” my energy on prompts I am not interested in interpreting in the moment I have enough energy to do something creative – especially since that might be the only art I get to make that week. I’d rather it be something that I am inspired by and interested in creating.

So I’ve been thinking about how to rework the project to make it more flexible, accessible and sustainable.

Potential Changes To The Project

There are 2 changes that I am definitely making:

Firstly, I will only be posting once a month instead of once a week. So from now until the end of the year, I will post a collection of the art I’ve created at the end of each month.

Secondly, I will stop working on this current 52-week project on week 52 of 2026 which is the same week as Christmas.

This allows me to finish the current set of prompts and brings me nicely up to the end of 2026. After which I will launch the new project for 2027 with the reworked concept. Still to be finalised.

Participants may of course continue with the previously published prompt lists if they are set on completing their 52-week project. I do not want to stop people from reaching their personal goals. I will happily continue sharing participating projects on my social media and here on the blog whenever I am made aware of them.

For those who would like to switch over to the new project in January, of course, you are all more than welcome to join me in 2027 for the new 52-Week Art Project.

I have a few ideas which I think might be fun, but I have not finalised everything yet. I believe there will be much creative inspiration as well as much more freedom to explore our imagination or participate in other adjacent projects if we want to.

Criteria For The Reworked Art Project:

• Still aiming to make art weekly, but the prompt/theme changes and blog posts are further apart.
• Less specific prompts, allowing more artistic freedom – more room for inspiration.
• Potentially creating a mood board to inspire creativity without being too specific.
• Being able to create more cohesive collections or series of artworks.
• Potentially having randomised prompts available for those less-inspired weeks.
• Less frequent blog posts about the project, maybe even with a change in format or focus.

I have some really fun ideas, so the next couple of months will be spent finetuning the reworked format for the new, and hopefully improved, 52-week art project.

Until then, we still have the current set of prompts to work with.

Upcoming October Prompts: Wk40-44

As I explained earlier, I will be positng my creations at the end of the month, going forward. So the next post about the 52-week project will be at the end of October. It will include whatever I have created using prompts 40-44 as inspiration.

I might combine them into one piece or collection or maybe each one will be separate. It will just depend on how much time and energy I have this month with all the real life admin I need to do too.

Of course I look forward to seeing what everybody else comes up with too. So please do keep sharing your creations and tagging me or upload them to the gallery. I’ll share any participant art that I find on my socials too.

Would You Like To Participate?

The #CH52art Summer Gallery 2026

Blog Parties & Link-ups where I’m sharing this post. Click here to see my link-up calendar and find new blogs to enjoy!