I first joined Inktober in 2015 and loved every minute of it. The creator of this 31 Day Ink Drawing Challenge is Jake Parker. And he is not only a fantastic artist but also a great inspiration and teacher. On his YouTube Channel, he talks about so much more than ‘how to draw’. He makes you believe in yourself and your dreams. He helps you to manage your time better and gets perfectionists like me to loosen up. So no matter if you are a full-time artist or just enjoy doodling in the corners of your notebook, this challenge is for you!

I’m so excited to join this wonderful challenge again this year and to make it as easy as possible for you to join as well, you can find all the rules and inspiration below.

What is Inktober?

Inktober was initially created by Jake Parker in 2009 as a challenge to improve his inking skills and develop positive drawing habits. It has since grown into a worldwide endeavor with thousands of artists taking on the challenge every year.

He says ‘Anyone can do Inktober, just pick up a pen and start drawing.’ and I totally agree with him. It does not matter if you are a professional artist or just enjoy doodling little sketches. It’s about creating something beautiful while enjoying the process of it.

Official Rules

1. Make a drawing in ink.
2. Post it online.
3. Hashtag it with #inktober and #inktober2017
4. Repeat every day of October

The official rules are short and simple, sticking to the challenge every day is not. So here the official 2017 prompt list, if your mind draws a blank. You don’t need to use it. It’s just there to spark ideas, should you be staring at a blank sheet of paper for multiple minutes without any ideas of your own. A place where we all have been before, haven’t we?

Inktober is Inktastisch!

I would love to see the drawings you create, so here my bonus rule:

Hashtag your daily drawings with #inktastisch as well so that I can find, comment and feature your beautiful creations!

My personal goal for this year is to stick to the 31 days. It has to be nothing fancy or huge, just drawing one little piece each day will do. I will share my drawings once a week here on the blog as well as on Instagram. Feel free to tag me in your images so we can chat along the way.

And to make it all more fun, here a couple of my drawings from 2015 as well as a video of a drawing I did for #inktober2015 😀

I don’t have the time for it.

If you are like ‘Inktober sounds awesome, but I really don’t have time for it!’ I might have a solution for you. We all know the struggle of not having enough hours in the day for the things we would love to do. And while it is mostly about committing and making the time, sometimes it still doesn’t work out. That being said, I created a one-page layout for you which you can use for your Inktober drawings. By limiting the space you have, you will be done much faster and not get lost in big projects. And we all can find five minutes per day to draw, right?

Sign up below to get this beautiful FREE INKTASTISCH LAYOUT for the 31 Day Ink Drawing Challenge ready to print!

PS: The Download Link is in the Welcome E-Mail you will receive after you have confirmed your subscription.
Should you not receive it in the next 15min please make sure to add
‘sandra(at)wundertastisch(dot)com’ to your email contacts and check your spam folder.

But I’m not good enough.

If this thought has crossed your mind while reading this blog post, keep reading and let me tell you a story:

I have been drawing as long as I can remember and black and white always was my ‘color palette of choice’. As a child, I enjoyed it immensely and spend hours at a time pursuing it. But the older I got the more conscious I was about how my drawings looked. Are they good enough? Did I get it right? So I started to put more and more pressure on myself to draw correctly and lost more and more joy along the way. When I started studying game design in 2008 I quickly gave up on drawing altogether since many of my classmates were so much better than me. Don’t make the same mistake!

If creating art or simply doodling is something you enjoy stick with it. You don’t need to be a renowned artist to have the right to create. And nothing needs to be perfect. It’s about the process. About drawing itself. About how it makes you feel and takes you into another state of mind while putting your pencil on paper.

Luckily after getting my degree I found my way back to my favorite past time and started drawing again. At first for myself then professionally as a freelance 2D Game Artist and Animator. And now by creating products that help others to become more productive while being creative. And only since I started to draw what truly matters to me did I fully find ‘the joy of creating’ again!

So join me and stop trying to be someone else. Be true to you and draw what you enjoy the most. Monochrome line drawings are my personal favorite. For you, it could be having every color of the rainbow in each painting you do. Or doodling Pokemon all day long. Make the time to do the things you enjoy the most and you will become unstoppable! Because that is what happiness is made off!

You are here: What is and how can I join Inktober?
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