Image source: Merlina McGovern
Without fail, every year around this time, leaves start to turn and the smell of pumpkin spice perfumes the autumn air. While other people are rewatching Hocus Pocus or going to Loews to buy a 12-foot skeleton, naming it Ed, and posing it provocatively in their front yard, I’m breaking out my Micron ink pens and dusting off my sketchbook.
For the past four years, I have been participating in the month-long art exercise called Inktober. According to Brushwarriers.com, the drawing challenge was started in 2009 by Jake Parker, an online illustrator. Meant to help artists brush up, pun intended, on their inking skills, the challenge asks artists to draw through a series of prompts using only black ink and a sketchbook. This challenge is especially helpful for beginning artists because only drawing in black and white forces you to think about line weight, composition, and values. These are all things that I still struggle with, and even after drawing for 31 days straight for the past four years, I’m still learning, and I’m still growing as an artist.
I love this challenge because when I’m inking a prompt, I tune out the rest of the world. As I sketch fine little black lines, all I see before me is the drawing. I have no thoughts of deadlines or wayward prose that needs to be tamed by my editing pen. When I was doing my first month of drawings, I discovered the true meaning of flow. I was in a pure state of flow when I was cross-hatching the feathers of a monster chicken, and before I knew it, more than an hour had passed.
I also love this challenge because it forces me to live with my mistakes. Even though I do complete a rough pencil sketch prior to inking, once I start inking, I have to live with every stray mark and squiggle. And that has become an increasing challenge over the years. I have found that as I’ve gotten older, my hands begin to shake when they get tired, especially if I find that I have gripped my pen too tight during a drawing session.
I have tried doing this challenge using digital art, but it felt a little bit like cheating. Because I could undo mistakes an infinite number of times, I felt that my drawings were losing some of their organic charms. Doing this challenge analog has allowed me to see my own quirky little style develop. I like to get lost in the details, but I also get impatient, and I can see both of those qualities in my drawings.
Finally, I love this challenge because at the end of those 31 days, I feel that I have improved my visual library and I get a real sense of accomplishment seeing all of my sketches beautifully inked out before me.
And now to what I hate. Oh man, this month is always so crazy busy. And I just add to that busyness by tacking on an enforced daily art practice. And, I have been trying to do a regular blog post as well, so now I have two daily tasks for at least three days of the week on top of all of my real editing work that I need to do every day. However, I tell myself, you can do it even if you only have five minutes to spare. A five-minute ink sketch has just as much value to my learning process as the hour-long sessions do.
The other reason I had an issue with the challenge was that back in 2019, the original creator had tried to copyright the word Inktober. This riled up the artist community who had thrived on the creativity this project had originally stoked. Controversy followed controversy when another artist accused the creator of plagiarism.
The issues angered some artists enough to create alternatives, such as Witchtober and Drawlloween.
Because I was so used to the format, I decided to stick with the original Inktober for this year. We’ll see how far I can make it this year!
Comments