Hello, dears!

Guess what, guys? It’s November! *throws fall leaf confetti* A less obvious fact: that means Inktober, the popular month-long art challenge, is over. In case you’re not familiar with Inktober, you’re basically supposed to make an ink drawing every day for the whole month, using prompts from an official list. And I am happy to say I MADE IT! I used all the prompts, drew (almost) every day, and finished with over 31 pages of inky art.

Even though I dislike how some pieces turned out, overall I like my Inktober sketches more than the ones I did last year, which is great. 🙂 I can’t wait to show you guys what I drew, so let’s get into it!

First, a quick description of my supplies. This year, I decided to use my toned-paper-sketchbook to add interest to monochromatic drawings. I’m SO glad I did, mostly because it gave me a chance to use tons of white gel pen, one of my favorite art supplies. XD Speaking of which, I also used Micron pens, a Tombow fudenosuke brush pen, gray and black brush markers, and the same colors in normal Crayola markers after the brush pens mostly died. 😛

Ahem. I wanted to make an Inktober cover page to separate it from the rest of this sketchbook and also so I’d have a place to write all the prompts to look back on each day. So.

Now we finally get into the Inktober art!

Day 1: RING // For most of these prompts, I tried to avoid the obvious first ideas that popped into my mind, and stretch my creativity instead. This wasn’t too hard here, since I fairly easily came up with the idea to make a fairy ring – a ring of mushrooms. It turned out super simple but pretty cute. 🙂 Also I later realized I drew a mushroom for the first prompt last year too!

Day 2: MINDLESS // Not quite sure what route to take with this one, I ended up doing some fun “mindless” doodles. I absolutely love how they came out with the layered white doodles on top and the subtle gray shading to add dimension.

Day 3: BAIT // Okay, this is one of my favorite Inktober drawings. ❤ I love the dreamy, magical feel of this piece, and how it tells a story. I kind of want to tap the fisherman on the shoulder and wake him up before something happens!

Day 4: FREEZE // I attempted to draw a realistic ice cube, but it didn’t turn out quite like I hoped. You can at least still tell it’s an ice cube, and I like the added touch of the tiny skater on top. 🙂

Day 5: BUILD // The prompt brought to mind construction, but also building blocks – which made me think of helping in the church nursery. XD So I drew a cute, chubby baby building a precarious tower.

Day 6: HUSKY // Eh, I’m not a fan of this one. I AM proud of myself for not just drawing the dog kind of husky like pretty much everyone else did. XD (Not that that’s a bad thing!) Other than a dog, “husky” brings to mind a big, strong guy like the one I drew (except he’s not very big XD). Also I drew him pulling a sled with firewood as a nod to the dog version of husky. 😉

Day 7: ENCHANTED // Ooooh! In case you can’t guess, this picture was inspired by the movie Tangled, which we had recently re-watched as a family. I love the beautiful lantern scene near the end, don’t you? It’s so magical and… enchanting. 😉 It turned out okay, but I could have done much better without the challenge limits I imposed on myself.

Day 8: FRAIL // So… this old lady is kinda creepy, but I rather like it that way. XD “Frail” makes me think of old, delicate, or both. So I drew an elderly woman holding a drooping flower.

Day 9: SWING // I mean… how many ways can you interpret this prompt? Swing dancing, swinging a bat or something, or an ordinary swing are pretty much the only ideas I had or saw. Since I wasn’t feeling overly inspired that day, I just drew a normal tree-swing.

Day 10: PATTERN // Ooh, I like this one, even though it has a few issues. 😛 Unlike the last prompt, there were endless possibilities for “pattern,” so I tried to incorporate more than one – such as a sewing pattern and then designs. I also really like the creative angle – I hardly ever draw this one, which caused some issues, especially with the person sewing. But ah well, I still like it.

Day 11: SNOW // Since I didn’t want to fill a whole page with white gel pen, I settled for drawing snowflakes – and since I didn’t just want to draw snowflakes, I made it snowing on a wintry girl, particularly on her eyelashes (“snowflakes that fall on my nose and eyelashes…” 😉 ). The features are rather out of proportion, but otherwise I really like this one!

Day 12: DRAGON // So I didn’t give myself enough time to do this idea justice, BUT I’m happy I pushed myself to draw a Chinese New Year’s scene rather than a normal dragon.

Day 13: ASH // Eh heh, this is one of my least favorite, as far as drawings go. It’s not bad or messed up, but it’s rather boring. I do like the concept, though! I based it on “Ring Around the Rosy.”

Day 14: OVERGROWN // Ahh, another one of my favorites! Possibly because this one took f o r e v e r, oh my word: several hours over the course of two days. But I love how it turned out, and kind of want to make it into a print or something for my shop.

Day 15: LEGEND // After the arduous process of the last drawing, I stuck with a simple rendering of the legendary Loch Ness Monster for this day. 🙂 It’s… whatever. *shrugs*

Day 16: WILD // This may be my absolute favorite Inktober drawing. I am so proud of the way it turned out because 1) IT TOOK FOREVER 2) I am NOT good at drawing faces in profile, so this was great practice 3) I’m also terrible at drawing hands, and while these are too small, took many tries, and generally could have been better, they actually look like hands! 4) I’m also bad at drawing hair and fur (it seems I was trying to torture myself here… XD), and I’m pretty happy with how that turned out too. Overall I just really like the style and concept of this art. 🙂

Day 17: ORNAMENT // I could only think of two options: ornament as in decorate yourself, or ornament as in a Christmas ornament. I chose the former. Again, good practice with drawing hair – I figured out that a dying brush pen works great for drawing hair texture!

Day 18: MISFIT // I drew this one at an amazing women’s retreat I went on with my church (where I did NOT feel left out, contrary to the drawing that day XD), so I didn’t spend a whole lot of time on it. I think the girl with the teddy bear is so cute and sad, though.

Day 19: SLING // Again, I drew this simple one at the retreat. I didn’t want to draw a slingshot, so drew a dad slinging around his little boy. 🙂 Cute but quite simple.

Day 20: TREAD // I had a whole story or theme worked out for this one and then… it kind of disappeared when I started drawing. Something about the way words can bruise or step on your heart, thus the footprint over her lips and face.

Day 21: TREASURE // Last year I draw a baby for the prompt “precious,” so this year I drew a baby for the prompt “treasure.” It breaks my heart that society so often sees little ones as a burden and not a blessing from God.

Day 22: GHOST // I’m not really into spooky things or Halloween, so I just drew a ghost-breath of the sort that happens when you go outside on a cold day.

Day 23: ANCIENT // Since I already drew an old person, I went for a mighty and ancient oak tree (or just a general tree, I suppose). I like the layout of this; using the full spread and a portrait format really accentuated the tree’s height.

Day 24: DIZZY // Ever seen one of those birdfeeders made to spin off hungry squirrels? XD Well, that’s what I drew! Side note: I think the stylized clouds really added something to the drawing, and were quite fun to make as well!

Day 25: TASTY // I kept it simple and drew some foods I like. I’m pleased with how it turned out! Which of these foods do you like, and which do you not?

Day 26: DARK // A black-haired galaxy girl sleeping in the darkest night. And that’s… that.

Day 27: COAT // I drew an animal’s coat instead of a human one to, again, stretch my creativity. For some reason I’m usually not the best at drawing foxes, but I think he came out pretty cute! Looks like he’s trying to get his winter coat to come in right quickly. 😛

Day 28: RIDE // My brothers used to ride around with Dad in the tractors or harvesters whenever they could. It’s been a few years, though, and now they just drive the equipment themselves! I like the nostalgic and simple style of this one. 🙂

Day 29: INJURED // Eh, another one of my lesser favorites. I decided to experiment with a type of cartoony style I pretty much never draw in, and… I think I’ll stick with my normal style, whatever that is. XD Semi-realism to realism, I guess. But I like the concept of a man who takes in injured birds and cares for them and tames them.

Days 30 & 31: CATCH and RIPE // I knew from the beginning of this challenge that I wanted to combine at least two prompts in a spread, and ended up waiting till the end of the month to do so. I wish I had given myself more time to make the trees and boys more realistic, but I still think it turned out decently cute, if not that stunning for a finale. 😛 Also can you tell I enjoy drawing those clouds? D

Welp, that’s my Inktober art for this year! I am SO glad I did the challenge – I learned so much, tried many new things, and made some lovely art – but I shall be glad to get back to FREEDOM. Now I can draw whatever I want whenever I want (within reason)! YAY!

Did you do Inktober? If so, how did it go? And which of these drawings did you like the best?

Thanks so much for reading, dears, and have a lovely day!

***Allison***