Artists, October is here and that means Inktober has officially started for 2017! Inktober is an annual, month-long initiative that artists from all over the world take part in to improve their inking skills alongside their friends and art role models. It helps them become more confident in their abilities all while having fun in process! Beginning in 2009, an artist by the name of Jake Parker started the trend to develop a positive drawing habit and improve upon his own inking skills and after he began posting his first “#Inktober” drawings, the world started to follow suit.

     There are very few rules and guidelines for this challenge as the main priority of Inktober is to have fun inking. There are only four officials rules: make a drawing in ink (albeit you can do a draft in pencil if you want); post it online; hashtag it with #Inktober and the year; and finally, repeat for every day of October. Those are the only rules, it’s just a chance celebrate your art and share it with your fellow artists! And if you need inspiration for each day, you don’t need to look far either- there’s an official theme for every day of the month starting with the October 1st being the word ‘swift’ and ending on October 31st with an inking based around the word ‘mask’. But, if you still need help and want to draw something that you’re more fond of, plenty of people make their own versions of the list with different overarching themes such as witches or monsters!

     Inktober inspires creativity among artists and create a warm and welcoming community where people share this passion of theirs with each other. Collections of black and white art pop up during this month and to be able to add to that ever growing pool of drawings, is a phenomenal feeling! You get to be apart of this movement and in saying that, you get motivated to continue and keep up as the days fly by. So that by the end of the month, everyone who’s taken part has improved their skills and have a whole thirty-one days worth of inking that they’ve created. You create, share, and improve with the Inktober Initiative.

     It’s a time to celebrate art and revel in the beauty of incredible inkings done during this month. Whether you participate for only a few days or do the whole month, I recommend that you try to join in on Inktober this year!

Sources:

“What Is Inktober?” ArtPrompts, 30 Sept. 2017, artprompts.org/what-is-inktober/.