The internet is full of challenges. Lots of people doing …well… lots of things that lead nowhere and seem to be brought into the virtual life as a result of attempting to cure boredom. But today we are talking about a challenge for artists, a challenge that speaks to everyone who likes to be creative with pen, pencil or brush – a challenge that will make you develop improve your creativity: Welcome to Inktober!

In case you have not heard of Inktober yet, the concept is quite easy to understand. Your sketchbook or your canvas or some pieces of paper (or in some cases maybe only a simple post-it) are as empty as your head is of ideas? Inktober might help you to get rid of “art block”, to live your artistry and push you to harness your creative potential again. The challenge in Inktober lies in its task: Drawing or painting one thing regarding one given topic every day on a piece of paper and then take a photo and upload it to contribute to inktober. The procedure is similar to daily painting [LINK EINFÜGEN], only with a little assistance from the online challenge.
Inktober was created in 2009 and by now, artists all over the world take on the drawing challenge. The idea is to do one ink drawing a day for the entire month; 31 days, 31 drawings. Over the years, the rules have “loosened” a bit, not only ink drawings are “permitted”, but the most important thing is to create something artistically. And anyone can join Inktober, it does not matter whether you participate as an experienced artists or an absolute amateur – you essentially only need a pen and a piece of paper. As it comes with every challenge, Inktober too has some rules to be followed:

1) Make a drawing in ink (you can do a pencil under-drawing if you want). 2) Post it online

3) Hashtag it with #inktober and #inktober2019 (or respective year)

4) Repeat

“That’s it! Now go make something beautiful!”

Added to that there are, as mentioned, some topic guidelines you can follow for every day, the so called “Prompt List”. In 2018 there were topics like “poisonous”, “tranquil”, “roasted”, “spell”, “weak”, “thunder”, “angular”… to only name a few of the overall 31 listed prompts. If you wanted to participate and follow this prompt list, it is easy to find when searching for “inktober 2019”. But this is not even a must-do, only cues or guidelines to assist the creative section of your brain, the main intention and Inktober’s aim is to make people use their creativity again, and do it every day. When doing “daily painting” as a challenge for everyone to see – as one rule is to post it online – there might come up something like “deadline anxiety”, something that pushes people to actually do something, instead of just talking about doing it. Also, looking at others’ Inktober-works will let you refuel on motivation and inspiration. So what are you waiting for? Take a pen, revive your creativity and show the world your artistic expressiveness! Saying goodbye to art block, one drawing and one day at a time.