As of this post, Inktober 2019 is just a day away. I went into Inktober last year on a bit of a lark, thinking no problem, this should be easy. I was wrong.
My inspiration for Inktober was the videos posted by Myriam Tillson. So, you can imagine my excitement when she agreed to come on my podcast Drawing Inspiration to talk about her art as well as Inktober. You can listen to the podcast here.
Tools and approach
I decided early on last year that I would do Inktober on my iPad. I don’t have a huge amount of solid time and wanted something that I could easily have with me at all times and post to social media easily. I work full-time in health research in the area of app development but I was able to secure some time at my lunch most days to put down some ideas.
I am planning to do the same this year. My app of choice is Procreate using a the HB or 6 pencil brush and the ink pen from artist Stefan (Stayf ) de Groot but I may change that pen up this year.
I did all 31 images last year even though I missed a
Lessons learned
I come from photorealism so being able to break away into areas of more obscure and illustrative have definitely allowed me to expand my art.
Inktober is hard and no one should put too much pressure on themselves to use the default prompts or even complete all 31 prompts. You can only do a few but I would suggest that you need to challenge yourself a little bit. If you draw on an irregular basis, maybe do 3 or 4 days in a row and see how it goes. Also, don’t be bound by ink. I have been doing a lot of ink work lately but will still do this year on my iPad. In fact, Jake Parker who created Inktober did a few digital pieces in 2018 as I think Adobe was one of the sponsors.
I will be posting my drawings here and to my Instagram. I may also do some live Twitch sessions.
Regardless, of how much or little you and what tools you use, good luck and have fun.
