CASSIDY BESSA
Inktober is a challenge that takes place every October, wherein artists make ink drawings as a social media challenge. You post your first post on social media on 1 October and your last post on 31 October. You can post your picture with the hashtags #inktober and #inktober2020 so that other people can see your drawings and you can see theirs.
However, it isn’t only about social media, you can also do the art independently and keep it for yourself. This challenge is about improving your skills and not just trying to see how many likes you can get on a drawing. You can also do the 52- week challenge where you do one drawing a week for a whole year.
This challenge was started by artist Jack Parker in order to improve his drawing skills and become more creative in his work, while inspiring others to be creative as well. He also wanted to encourage others to be creative as well. Parker started this challenge in 2009, so the challenge turns eleven this year. However, it is not a competition, but rather a way to show off your art and to challenge yourself to draw consistently.
Although ink drawings are what was originally intended for this challenge, pencil drawings with ink over them as well as other mediums can also be used to show your own unique sense of style. Each day in October has a prompt which you can interpret anyway that you would like to. Every year the prompts are different, and they inspire you to get those creative juices flowing. Digital drawing is also very popular during Inktober. This is a fun alternative medium to basic black pen on paper.
This is a unique and fun challenge to do and it is highly recommended to try it even though we are well into October already. You can always extend the challenge to make it more accessible to you. You can follow the official prompts, or you can come up with your own. Happy drawing!
Illustration: Marchall Potgieter
