Inktober 2022

Hello friends!

At the end of my last post, I hinted that I was going to attempt Inktober this year and I ACTUALLY COMPLETED IT. :0 If you're not familiar with Inktober, it's this worldwide challenge to complete an ink drawing every day in October from an official prompt list. I'm normally rather bad at staying up with long challenges like this, so although I got a little behind at times and they're definitely not my best drawings ever, I'm proud of myself for finishing!

I was hoping to try using actual inks for these drawings, but I couldn't find the kind I wanted so these are mostly done in pen or black/gray brush markers with gel pen accents. I love how the black-and-white drawings look on the toned paper! Extra colors were only used on two drawings.

Certain friends have been not-so-patiently waiting for this post *glares*, so without further ado...

First of all, let's take a second to admire this sweet little journal my friend Lily got me for my birthday. I wasn't sure exactly what to use it for, but it ended up working perfectly for Inktober!

For day 1, the prompt was "gargyole". I didn't really feel like drawing something inherently ugly, so I made a cover drawing instead. XD (This is the third time you've seen this drawing by now, oops.)

Day 2 was "scurry", so here we have a scribbly little hamster hiding in a blanket.

Day 3, "bat", ended up being one of my least favorite drawings of the month... I wasn't really sure what I was doing and then got a little carried away with my white gel pen. XD Day 4, "scallops", was tedious but fun.

Some whimsical little doodles for day 5 ("travel") and 6 ("match"). This little cricket was inspired by the book The Cricket in Times Square by George Selden.

Ooh I like this spread! Day 7's prompt was "flame" and day 8 was "bouquet".

Day 9, "nest", is one of my favorite drawings of the whole challenge. :) I struggle with drawing hands but the one in my "crabby" drawing turned out somewhat decent.

This one is by itself because I forgot to do it on the back of the last one. I felt kind of uninspired, so here we have an empty box filled with the prompt. XD

Here's another fun spread! Day 11, "eagle", and 12, "forget".

People are hard to draw. :'D The prompt for day 13 was "kind" and day 14 was "armadillo"- they're bowling with cactus pins, if you can't tell. XD The drawing on the other side bled through a bit, sadly.

Honestly though, my drawing for day 16 ("fowl") turned out cute enough that I don't mind much. XD 18, "scrape", is a scraped-out bowl of brownie batter. (Day 17 I accidentally did on the wrong page. We were out of town this weekend and then I got super behind the following week, so from here on none of the drawings were done on the correct days. XD)

The patterns in day 17, "salty", were fun. I quite like how my "ponytail" drawing turned out!

Day 20, "bluff", was inspired by the cliffs on the coast of Scotland. My "bad dog" digging in the field for day 21 ended up looking a bit more like a cow. XD

Days 22 ("heist") and 24 ("fairy"). I did skip 23- I think the prompt was "booger" or something un-lovely like that. XD

Ohhh these poor pages. :'D For day 27 I tried to draw a Frosted Mini Wheat cereal (because that's the "snack" I was munching on at the time)... but things went downhill after I ate my reference. Draw your own conclusions about the story behind day 28's "camping" doodle.

Now THIS was a fun spread. For day 25's "tempting" I tried drawing with almost exclusively white gel pen, and I think I was actually pretty successful! And who better to draw for day 26's "ego" than Mr. Stark. *insert that one explosion gif*

"Uh-oh" for day 29 looks remarkably like my bluffs drawing from earlier- by this point in the challenge I was starting to feel rather uncreative and cynical. XD Day 30, "gear", is kind of cool, but I definitely could've executed it better.

And finally, we have a weird little ant colony for day 31, "farm." :'D It's hard to see the ants in the photo, but take my word for it- they don't look much better in person.

Congrats, you made it through all the scribbles! Because October was such a crazy month for me, it was hard to find time to draw and so most of these drawings were a bit rushed. :'D I definitely could have done better, but hey, it's my first Inktober. Next year's drawings will be much better, I'm sure! It's so nice to get back to drawing in my regular colors and mediums now, which reminds me: I somehow have never done a general art dump post. :0 Random pieces are sprinkled through my posts but for the amount of time I spend making art, it takes up surprisingly little space here on my blog! To change this, I'm planning a huge art post for sometime in December. Stay tuned. :)

Signing off for now, thanks for reading!

-Alayna