For the last 7 years, I’ve jumped onto the the month-long (October) Inktober challenge, using prompts developed by the Zentangle community. This year I switched it up, deciding to follow the official daily word prompts, one word a day, creating images representing each word, solely in ink. The only rules I held myself to were: 1) only ink; no pencil sketching, and 2) create a drawing daily in 10 minutes or less. When I was all finished, it seemed some shading with Tombow brush pens was needed, and then Flambé wanted to play ….. but in color! Definitely a fun challenge! Here’s what I came up with.
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. Participants create an ink drawing daily, and Inktober.com posts an official list of word prompts to help guide you on this journey.
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 2022 is officially over, you can still take on the challenge in the the following months, or anticipate and participate in the event in October 2023.
For more information, search the web for Inktober.com. I’d love to know if you go for it!
a curious nature 