About

It all started when…

SVSLearn was just getting off the ground, and we thought it would be fun to do a monthly art contest!

Back then, the contest was called Third Thursdays, and the format was totally different. Instead of the challengers going head to head, the judges just picked their favorites and critiqued them.

Eventually, Third Thursdays morphed into monthly webinars on various illustration topics of the day (you can still find some of the recordings in the subscription!).

But we still wanted to do a monthly art contest, so we rolled out another more traditional version, where the judges simply picked the top 3, along with a handful of honorable mentions.

But something was missing….the guts and glory of battle! And Critique Arena was born.