Inktober completed

Every October, artists all over the world take on the Inktober drawing challenge by doing one ink drawing a day the entire month.  Jake Parker created Inktober in 2009 as a challenge to improve his inking skills and develop positive drawing habits.

My plan was to post my Inktober dailies as they progressed, but the best laid plans…

As well as using the official prompts from Jake, I decided to link the prompts to album covers to help me focus on a set of related drawings. It didn’t get off to the best start as it became clear the paper in the Moleskine I was using was too thin to handle ink with any weight. Bleed through was simply adding another layer to the challenge I wasn’t prepared to cope with! So, a change of tack and one sheet of A3 for all the drawings. (I should say this was my fault, not Moleskine’s, I chose a regular notebook I had lying around rather than a sketchbook)

This is the finished piece.

I started by reproducing the four drawings I’d produced in the Moleskine and then on with the daily prompts. I’d pre-planned some of the drawings from the prompts, I always knew Day 12, Whale was going to be inspired by the B-52’s, Loveshack and featured a Chrysler that’s as big as a whale. Other prompts were more of a challenge, but I manged to come up with something for every day and usually from my own vinyl and cd collection. Rock around the ‘clock’ was an exception, but I’m not a fan of Coldplay, sorry!

The keen eyed following on my Instagram feed will have noted some days were quite small. Typically, I started big and realised I was going to run out of space, as a consequence some entries got drawn over. Lexicon of Love fell victim to this more than most. If I was justifying it, I’d say I deliberately layered the drawings to provide depth!

Some stats:

Bruce makes it in twice.
Yes too.
Sheffield 3 v Manchester 3

I hope you like the finished piece.