What I Learned From Doing InkTober(2023)
Hello spooky friends! I know it isn’t Halloween, but I wanted to share my thoughts on this past InkTober drawing challenge!
InkTober is a month long drawing challenge that takes place in October each year! It was started by artist Jake Parker who is a New York Times Best Selling illustrator! He created the challenge of InkTober to help artists focus on improving skills and developing positive drawing habits.
I have now completed the InkTober challenge twice! My first go at it was in October 2020, which was a great time to pass time in a year that was both very eventful, and also not eventful. During that October I wanted to build a good drawing habit. But in 2023, I had a different goal in mind.
October 2023, I decided to focus less on drawing everyday, but to change up what I draw. When you draw almost everyday, you have to find different things to draw if you don’t want to get bored. At least I do. And I feel I was able to achieve this, and I’m very happy with the outcome of this challenge!
I feel I was able to learn a bit more this go around with InkTober than I did the first time I did it. Because I focused less on putting the pressure on drawing everyday, I was able to come up with more interesting drawings. I made my limit 31 drawings rather than to draw everyday for 31 days.
If I missed a day, I added it to the next. Sometimes I missed a few days, well even though I missed the days, I didn’t miss the drawings. I think this mindset allowed me to feel less like it was a chore by mid-October and allowed me to focus more on the art itself.
I think by giving myself the limit of 31 drawings, and having the goal of diversifying my drawings, I was able to look for inspiration in new places. I went to the usual places like Pinterest and Instagram. But I found myself often looking in my surroundings, the activities I was doing, along with looking at other artwork for ideas.
While I was in Missouri on a trip, I found inspiration in the new places I saw, and the reason why I went, to celebrate my brother graduating AIT.
I also found inspiration in the surroundings of typical places I found myself like my home, my parent’s home, and other “regular” places I am often at.
I also found inspiration in video games I play, like Disney Dreamlight Valley! I often take pictures and screenshots of my games, but I don’t always come back to those pictures so it was fun to tap into some of them, during this challenge!
InkTober is a great challenge, and I highly recommend it for all artists! You can create many goals for this challenge. It doesn’t have to be a big scary task! InkTober also has a year long challenge called InkTober 52 where you do one challenge a week for a year! InkTober provides both a prompt list for the month long and year long challenges!
