You'll want to join this joyful Instagram art club

Isolation has been made bearable for many by the efforts of the creative community and Quarantine Art Club is a wonderful example of this. Set up on Instagram by children's illustrator Carson Ellis, the daily challenges are a fun and unique way to stay connected – plus learn something new.

Ellis' challenges range from more easily interpretable themes, such as 'garden' (see the image above) to specific skills, like 'continuous line contour drawing'. They've elicited an eclectic mix of responses, from children to professional artists. (Whatever your standard, it won't hurt to have a read of our art techniques post before dipping your artistic toe in.)

The assignments often contain nuggets of creative wisdom, which could be valuable for your creative process, like assignment three (above), which explains how to use prompts to create new artwork. Our favourite response to this challenge came from Juli, with this super-fun "cat in a mini bikini, dancing ballet".

Ellis also gives instruction on how to master a new artistic skill like continuous line contour drawing (see below).

We love this poignant response, which goes back to basics with snail mail.

Assignment Five: Treasure Map was inspired by Ellis' niece and nephew, and resulted in this Corona map.

Whereas this response from Clark, aged 5, is super-imaginative.

The project has engaged many in artistic expression, and the expert edge Ellis brings to the series provides unique insight into the creative process of an illustrator. We also love Noel Fielding's art club that's going on over on Twitter, which has some gloriously random results. 

Check out the rest of Carson Ellis' Quarantine Art Club over on her Instagram page, and find other assignments such as Self Portrait and Who Do You Love. Ellis' children's book, Home, also happens to be one of our favourite picture books – find out more in our rundown of the best picture books around.

Read more:

• Illustrators depict their perfect self-isolation scenario
• The best pencils for colouring, drawing and sketching
• 20 phenomenally realistic pencil drawings