This week I made quite a daunting decision to participate in Inktober for the first time ever.
For those of you who don’t know, Inktober is an art challenge that happens during the month of October, where you have to do one drawing a day for the entire month. Given the name the main medium to use is of course ink in some shape or form, whether digital or traditional, but you can incorporate other mediums into the piece too. It’s something I’ve always wanted to do since it first started back in my DeviantArt days a long, long time ago, but somehow I’ve just never had the time for it.
I’m going to be using a Stillman & Birn Beta Series 270gsm cold pressed watercolour sketchbook for the challenge. It’s my first time using this brand and I’m already really excited about it, good watercolour sketchbooks are hard to come by and the paper is so lovely and thick. All the main materials I’m using this year are linked at the bottom of this post.
My goal for participating this year is not improving my drawing skills- I mean improving would be nice and all – but my personal goal this year is consistency. I’ve struggled for a long time now with drawing and posting YouTube videos on a regular and consistent basis. It’s partly to do with my health issues – I have chronic pain which can be very exhausting, and I work in a day job where I’m on my feet all day. Most of the days I’m not in work I spend recovering. But it’s also because I’m not a very organised person and I find it tricky to stick to deadlines.
I’ll be uploading on a daily basis to my YouTube channel for the whole month. I’m hoping that Inktober and its very tight schedule, plus the accountability of you guys watching, will get me in the habit of editing, doing voice-overs and uploading on a regular basis. I’ve got a lot of goals for the channel going forward which I really want to stick to, so I’m hoping that Inktober will give me the motivation and routine that I need in order to do this. I want to teach myself self-discipline and prove to myself that it is possible to set aside time to draw and and work on content every day regardless of what I’m doing.
This year, I plan on using the official 2018 prompts, but with a twist! All of the drawings that I’ll be doing from these prompts are going to be animal related somehow. There are quite a few tricky prompts on this list which I’m a little bit nervous about but I am up for the challenge and super excited to see what I can come up with that somehow relates to some of these more difficult prompts.
The best part about Inktober is that we’re all in this together and the community and artwork shared during this time of the year is so awesome and motivating. So if you are joining me in participating in Inktober this year, good luck, and stay determined! I believe in us! Even if you’re not participating, I hope that this inspires you to pick up a pen and get sketching. I would love to see what you come up with for each day as well, so please do tag me in your inktober posts over on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook too!
My Recommended Inktober Art Supplies (sponsored Amazon Links):
Pentel brush pen
US: https://amzn.to/2xVpwNZ
UK: https://amzn.to/2xHzZNL
Size 2 squirrel brush
US: https://amzn.to/2zzRJM8
UK: https://amzn.to/2xHazQ3
Indian Ink
US: https://amzn.to/2QejIGL
UK: https://amzn.to/2N6Dh1Y
Stillman & Birn Beta series 5.5 x 8.5 inch hardbound sketchbook
US: https://amzn.to/2OgwIyd
UK: https://amzn.to/2xEH01G
Uni Posca Ultra Fine Paint Markers
US: https://amzn.to/2Ikhv9W
UK: https://amzn.to/2N7Hbaz
Uniball Pin Fine Liners
US: https://amzn.to/2CTolEu
UK: https://amzn.to/2xaX1MN
That’s it from me for now, I hope to see you over on my Youtube channel for Day 1 of the Inktober challenge!