Celebrating InkTober

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Art by Crista Kempton

October isn’t just the month for pumpkin spice lattes and Halloween decorations. There’s actually an October-exclusive, month-long creative challenge called InkTober. You might have heard of this if you’re a visual artist. InkTober was created by Jake Parker, illustrator and co-founder of The Society of Visual Storytelling. Essentially, the challenge is to create ink drawings everyday for the entire month of October.

Parker initially started InkTober as a personal project to improve his drawing habits and skills. It then grew from an individual goal to a public drawing challenge that reaches millions of participants all over the world. Anyone can participate in InkTober no matter the skill level. Despite InkTober’s focus on drawing or comics, the challenge isn’t just about creating something everyday. It’s a great way to become more confident about your art practice and be motivated to make new work.

InkTober official logo / mrjakeparker.com

Here are the basic rules to get started:

Make a drawing in ink
Post it on any social media site
Use the hashtags #inktober and #inktober2018
Repeat

InkTober also provides an official prompt if you need some drawing inspiration! Each word on the list is related to a day in the month and all you have to do is interpret the listed words however you want.

October might be winding down, but you can still participate in Inktober any time during the month! Whether or not you’ve been drawing since Day 1 or joined late in the game, you can find many inspiring ideas from the Inktober challenge that you can apply to your own art any day.

Try these tips to improve your drawing techniques:

Feel free to experiment with different styles, mediums and ideas

Create your own prompts

Get a sketchbook to organize all of your work in one place

Connect with other artists from Inktober, share your process, ideas, thoughts on drawing

Make work outside of your studio, get a change of scenery

Use some reference photos

Set a scheduled time to make something

Take breaks — it’s okay to skip some days, you should feel inspired and not stressed out

If you’re completely new to InkTober and have no idea where to start, here are some materials to get you started!

Now make some drawings and spill some ink!