Despite any number of other things competing for my attention in October, I decided to Inktober again. In case you don’t know, this is a challenge to draw something everyday in October using ink and following a prompt set up by Inktober on Instagram. There was also a suggestion of which might be coloured rather than monochrome if the artist fancied it.

There are some astonishing artists out there but I’m not one of them. I just like sketching as a relaxation tool as I’ve said before. It makes me take a few minutes out of my day and use a part of my brain that doesn’t get dusted off that often which helps reset the other bits of my brain that are on hamster wheels.

I’m not particularly competitive other than against myself, but I like a challenge if I think I can do it without exploding for no reason other than pride. I can beat myself up endlessly about my failures in a lot of areas, but art isn’t one of them.

Last year the prompts were pretty random. This year there was a theme – travel – with a couple of curve balls (‘rust’ and ‘violin’ being the ones most off topic) and several that were so similar as to be almost indistinguishable: ‘trek’, ‘hike’, roam’, ‘expedition’.

As the world currently seems to be often a scary and sad place, I decided that I wouldn’t try to have any hidden meanings in any of my sketches this year. I decided to attempt light humour. This also wasn’t always easy when following the prompt – a challenge in itself.

I’m pleased with some and less pleased with others. Some I will possibly draw again. Some days it was hard to find the time, energy or inspiration but overall it was fun. Two of the sketches are based on life: the pony trekking (6th) and camping in a gale with my father insisting on cooking breakfast (22nd). In other sketches, the little girls are also sort of me and my sister and the teddy is sort of her bear Freda (2nd, 7th, 24th). The dragons wouldn’t like to be left out of course and somehow a unicorn muscled its way in, ridden by a friend. It proves I can’t draw horses even when they’re magical but there you go.

Not being confident enough to simply start inking directly onto paper, I made a sketch first and then inked in the detail using fineliners and on a couple of occasions white board markers because I needed more ink. I didn’t use ink ink with a pen as I need to practise that and I didn’t think to use ink ink with a brush. But I might start to do some practising because it appeals – I was longing for my watercolours throughout.

Looking back, I realised I could have created a story using the prompts as the plot. It didn’t occur to me when I was looking at them and it would probably have added a layer of stress I didn’t want or need this year.

Next year though… maybe I will.

Let’s see what the 2025 prompts bring.

But without further ado, here are my thirty-one inktober efforts for 2024. Which (if any) is your favourite?

Words and picture Copyright (c) 2024 Paula Harmon. Not to be used without the author’s express permission.