Category Archives: Inktober2023

My 8th year participating in the October’s “Inktober” is complete, and I’m excited to share all 31 days of official prompts, as interpreted by moi (that’s Flambé speak for “me”). Every year, as I near day 31, keeping up with the daily prompts becomes a challenge. This year was no exception! But I was determined to finish close to the deadline.
And Ta! Da!
Each 9×6” page of my accordion book are chock full of inked and painted illustrations with touches of humor, drama, realism, mystery, whimsy and a touch of fantasy. It was great fun stretching my imagination, but I’m happy to be finished (at least until Inktober 2024).

If you missed my October 16th post displaying the first 15 days of illustrations, have no fear! I’ve included them in this post. However, if you’re aching to learn more about Inktober and want to play along next year, all the background info can be found in my Inktober2023 post on the 16th.

So here they all are, beginning with images of each long side of my accordion book. Enjoy!

Hope you enjoyed the tour through my accordion book. Let me know if you also played along, and if you’ll be taking on the challenge during Inktober 2024.

This is my 8th year participating in the annual October “Inktober” challenge, and yesterday I finished up the first 15 days of prompts. Right on schedule! Like last year, I’m following the official daily word prompts (the full list is at the end of this post), creating ink images representing each word. I made an 9”x6” 33 page accordion book that will eventually display each illustrated prompt, giving myself much more space for sketching. Each of the first 15 sketches was done in ink, and I’ve decided to permit myself the use of watercolor pencil to add liveliness.

Flambé wanted to play too, and we both had fun! Here’s what I came up with for days 1-15.

So what exactly is Inktober?

Inktober is an annual art challenge lasting for all 31 days of October. It was created by artist Jake Parker, with the purpose of improving art skills and developing daily drawing habits. Inktober.com posts an official list of word prompts to help guide this journey, from which participants create a daily ink drawing.

Even though there’s an official list of words to follow, “Inktober is just a framework to get yourself to draw better, flex a little, and/or have some fun with your art. Inktober is a challenge NOT a contest to see who the best artist is. It’s a challenge to see how much you can improve your art in a month, and to be inspired or to help inspire other artists to do the same.⁣”

Anyone can participate, in any way imaginable. You can come up with your own list or search for the numerous lists created by many others, like the one of patterns posted annually by Zentangle. And you can use ink, pencil, paint or crayon. There’s really no rules, no wrong approach. Just make art every day in October!

Even though Inktober 2023 is well underway, you can still take on the challenge beginning now and into the the following months. Or anticipate and participate in the event in October 2024.

For more information, search the web for Inktober.com. I’d love to know if you go for it!