Inktober Plan

These past few years, an online phenomenon known as Inktober has caught my eye but I've never participated. As the month began, several people posted here and there on social media that they were intent on participating. Wondering what Inktober was about and what exactly was involved in participation, I did an online search. Turns out it's a way to force oneself to draw every day. The founder, Jake Parker emphasizes that Inktober is "...a framework to get yourself to draw better and have some fun with your art. It’s not a contest..." His original purpose was to establish a way to perpetuate regular, repetitive drawing practice. While the idea is to make a drawing every day--a schema that Michelangelo would agree with--on the Inktober website (linked above), he says you can draw every day, every other day, once a week, even. The usual routine is to do a pen and ink, then post it with a hashtag, share it on social media, or just with somebody. In my own case, the Daily Digitalium, my daily digital drawing blog, serves the same purpose.

"On the Cowpasture River," 6x8 pen and ink on toned paper, 2017

But I've neglected ink work these past few years in favor of other kinds of drawing. While metalpoint and digital drawing have involved me, ink not so much. That isn't to say there hasn't been any pen and ink in my practice, just not so much. In reviewing old sketches I did find a few from 2017 and earlier, but none since then.

"Stella Sleeping," 4x4 pen and ink on paper, 2019

This sketch of one of our dogs is one of three ink drawings I've done so far in October, with more to follow. It's not hard to manage a daily drawing so long as they're small, so no doubt many will be 6x8 or less.

Although I will continue producing a digital drawing or two every day, and posting at least one to my digital blog, my plan is also to do a daily pen and ink and post a few of those. Whether I actually manage a drawing a day remains to be seen.