Blank pages, brain fog, and a pad of crisp white sketchbook paper—the quintessential recipe for the inevitable onslaught of art block: the thief of creativity. But as the artist battles against the onset of apathy, October provides a unique cure: Inktober, an art challenge for everyone. Pen, paper, and a single–word prompt provide the antidote to every creative’s worst nightmare.
I first came across Inktober as a young aspiring Instagram artist—back in the days when my feed consisted mostly of eyes, fan art, emojis, and braided hair. The clever play on words looked like an October typo to my juvenile eyes, but the hashtag only kept reappearing beneath more pen and ink doodles. It was a grayscale takeover of the overly saturated Pinterest drawings my peers and I typically shared. I clicked on the hashtag and made a Google search, eager to get myself in the loop.
Inktober began in 2009 as a challenge to improve skills while creating positive drawing habits, founded by visual artist Jake Parker. Starting as a humble online challenge, Inktober has blossomed into a mainstream annual event in the art community, with hundreds of thousands of participants and millions of drawings posted every year. The hashtag #inktober has currently amassed over 27 million posts on Instagram.
The challenge consists of 31 drawings for all 31 days of October, with a daily one–word prompt to kickstart inspiration. Parker makes a new prompt list annually, a conglomeration of unrelated words like “rust,” “roam,” or “jumbo.” As everyone begins with the same one–word prompt, social media timelines are flooded with thousands of interpretations of the same starting point. The online art community thrives in a different way during October with this abundance of daily inspiration.
The rules are simple:
- Make a drawing in ink
- Post it
- Hashtag with #inktober and #inktober2024
- Repeat!
But, ultimately, these rules function more as loose guidelines—the true goal is daily creation. There is no one “right” way to do Inktober; the point is simply to make daily art and to share it with someone else.
As we transition into the cold months and feel tendencies to recede into hibernation, I know the threat of mental block looms over me greater than ever. Artistic inspiration seems to dwindle by the minute. The hardest part of creating something is first starting it, but Inktober’s prompts are a safety blanket in these times of limited creativity. With a single word, the challenge elevates the creative process above ground level, while still leaving ample room for personal interpretation. The blank page seems much less daunting with a single pen in hand and a community behind you.
While the challenge centers around the month of October, its rules and takeaways are universally applicable. Rather than an art competition to have the “best” interpretations of Parker’s prompts, Inktober is a communal, collaborative experience. It’s a time of year to draw and share doodles for the sake of making art—a time when anyone with a piece of paper can pick up a pen and join a new online community. It challenges the push to constantly perform or “win” as a creative. Rather than making a daily masterpiece, the challenge simply stresses daily creation. “Bad” art doesn’t exist in Inktober.
This year’s first prompt is “backpack.” Keep a pen and paper in your backpack this October!
