The Inktober Challenge is Back

The Inktober challenge is upon us once again! If you don’t know what that means, the short of it is, it’s an art challenge started in 2009 by artist Jake Parker to improve his own inking skills. As he posted his daily ink drawing, he garnered a huge following of other artists also wanting to take part. Before you knew it, it became an annual event with thousands of artists taking part from around the world. Jake accommodated us by posting daily prompts. The very cool thing about it is checking out what everyone else is doing and how they’re doing it and how they interpreted the prompt.

As time has passed, there are many more people posting their own set of prompts, but the point of this is in the challenge. So, I would argue that while Inktober is all about an inking challenge, you needn’t be bound by that.

It’s about the challenge.

What is it that you’ve always wanted to do? Is there a challenge that you’ve been putting off? For example, if you’re not comfortable with inking, then maybe go ahead and take on Inktober as is. It is supposed to be a challenge after all. I guarantee after 31 drawings you’ll improve. However, if you’ve always wanted to try your hand at watercolor or color pencil, then take that on instead of ink. Ballpoint pen? Absolutely! You can always use the same prompts.

Some samples of my own personal Inktober challenge from 2018. Ballpoint pen and Copic markers. (Photo/Art Credit: Myra Naito)

A little sidenote…if a drawing a day seems a bit intimidating to you, Jake’s got a variation on the Inktober challenge, which consists of a drawing a week. Inktober 52. Because, well, you’ll end up with 52 drawings by the end of the year. And that’s not too shabby, right?

How you do the Inktober challenge is totally up to you. You can use Jake Parker’s prompts or whichever set of prompts resonates with you. A quick Google search will result in tons of varieties. You can use whichever medium you want. Don’t let anyone tell you that is absolutely must be ink. You can choose to do individual sketches or create a giant image consisting of all 31 prompts like Jake does. It’s entirely up to you. You don’t even have to post them if you don’t want. The challenge is for you to push your skills and to have a little fun doing it.