Remember when you were a kid and wanted to draw, but didn’t know what to doodle with your crayons? So you asked you mom or dad what to draw, and they gave you an idea—anything—so long as it would get you off their back and give them just one goddamn moment’s peace? Inktober’s kinda like that, but without the child neglect and bourbon (man, your childhood sounds messed up…no judgment though).
For the uninitiated: the Inktober website posts a list of 31 keyword prompts, one for each day of October. Your challenge is to do an ink drawing based on whatever springs to mind from that keyword, then share it with the world. It’s become a way to get people drawing, celebrate ink as an art form, and spur a community of creative artists working and sharing.
Anyway, it sounds like fun, right?
It’s actually exhausting and nerve wracking…
Artistic Failure and Why it’s OK!
See, I’m not a fast artist. It takes me a while to work up something. I doodle, I sketch, I play with composition. Then I put that sketch out of sight for a few days and take a look at it with fresh eyes, see what jumps out and make some changes. That’s not unusual, that’s how most artists work—getting some distance from you own work lets you come back to it anew, see it from a more objective view point, and see what needs work. That’s true for art, writing, whatever you’re making. But other artists are usually much more confident with their initial sketches. Sometimes I am too, but the other half of the time (ah, who am I kidding, MOST of the time) I need, well, time, to chip away at something.
You only learn by failing. Google it, there’s about a million quotes out there saying so.
Art hasn’t been something that has ever come easy to me. It’s something I work at, struggle with, surprise myself with, and sometimes (usually) fail at.
And that’s OK.
See, you only learn by failing. Google it, there’s about a million quotes out there saying so.
So it’s ok to fail when working on something artistic. You don’t make something truly good by taking a stab at it and calling it a day. You need to sketch, experiment, write a rough draft, flip the composition, try a different approach. Sometimes your “failures” have a nugget of good in them, little seeds that can grow into something greater if you have the patience to re-work them into something better.
Creating Something New Every Day!
I did my first Inktober in 2018, and I quickly learned that a daily art challenge simply boils all that lengthy process down into a little mini experiment that plays out each and every day. It makes you try something new and play with a fresh approach, all with the understanding that you’re not looking to make a masterpiece. Instead, it’s about quickly getting an idea down on paper—not obsessing over details, but simply making it the best it can be in the limited amount of time you have, and then moving on.
Once I understood that, I started to have fun with it.
I mean, it was still nerve wracking, but a fun kind of nerve wracking, I guess?
Inktober is about quickly getting an idea down on paper, not obsessing over details…
Some days were definitely a struggle! But I loved the results and found that there were quite a few pieces that I wanted to go back to, pieces I felt had potential to be taken to the next level and turned into a proper illustration or painting someday. See what a little “quick” experimentation can get you?
I’ll have more Inktober stuff coming soon! In the meantime, check out the results of my first Inktober with the Inktober 2018 Art Book, available now!