Inktober

Inktober is an annual art challenge which I've taken part in a few times, posting my results over on Facebook. The idea is to try and produce an ink drawing each day (or as often as you're comfortable with) throughout October.

Here you can find each year's full collection, so you don't have to go rummaging through the facebook feed to find them all!

I like to treat it as a fairly casual daily drawing exercise - it's a good time to try drawing different things, or simply experiment with line weight and hatching techniques. This does mean my Inktober work tends to be a bit rougher than what you'll find on my other gallery pages though!

2021

After skipping a year I wanted to make another attempt at the Inktober challenge, following the official prompt list but adding my dragons here and there as always.

This year I also decided to change from posting these daily on the facebook page, and instead took the opportunity to jumpstart an Instagram habit... although as it turned out that plan didn't go quite as well as it could have.

Why? Well because I am apparently cursed to get ill around mid October -.-

Once again I found myself ticking along happily enough for the first week, got a little tired in the second week, and then got wiped out with a cold (and yes, given the year: it was just a cold). I fought back with a few more drawings towards the end of the month, but completely ran out of steam and had to make the decision to put what energy I had into higher priority tasks.

So, another year, another incomplete challenge. It's frustrating, but I choose to focus on how pleased I am with what I did draw, and no doubt I'll try again next time October rolls around!

2019

I started this one in the second week, having been on holiday and simply taken a while to settle back into things!

This year I wanted to try the official prompt list again, and then ended up continuing 2018's personal mini-theme of working with dragons too.

Overall this ended up being a pretty haphazard run on the Inktober challenge - I was struggling a lot with just getting my head into drawing mode, so I skipped quite a few days. Still, I'm happy with what I *did* draw - in fact some of them still give me a nice warm 'oh hey, I drew that!' feeling when I look back on them, so I'd call that a win!

2018

2018's Inktober started out well enough - I decided to follow the official prompt list, but also had my own mini-theme of trying to include a dragon each time. I planned to draw each weekday, but skip the weekends to give myself a break.

The first week went fine, the second hit a few hiccoughs, and then for the second half of October I caught some sort of nasty chesty cough that just wiped me out. It was frustrating to feel myself failing at a challenge I'd been looking forward to, but I knew trying to force myself to draw when I had no heart for it wouldn't get me anywhere so I had to put the pen down and call it a day.

2017

For 2017's Inktober I decided to use my own theme rather than the official prompt list, and aimed to create an 'alphabestiary'.
I had been sticking with fish and dragons throughout the year, so I wanted to challenge myself with some different creatures!

I found the repeating border format helped me to set pen to paper each day, and I had help from my Facebook followers when it came to choosing a subject for some of the letters.

Filling A through Z also meant I had only set myself 26 drawings rather than a full 31, so I had a little breathing room to use if I was struggling for time or brain power. Even so, I still ended up finishing the last few letters after October!

I really enjoyed drawing these, and I hope you enjoy them too.