Inktober was one of the most creative, inspiring, challenging, and exhausting experiences I have done in a while!

I have had many areas in my art that I have been wanting to work on, including: working in black & white (oh dear, no color for a month!!!) to improve my value range, character design and development, and working sequentially. I really wanted to succeed and complete all 31 days, so I made a list of adventures and scenes that I could paint my characters in, this definitely evolved as the month went on. I also set up an Inktober station at my worktable, where all of my materials were easily accessible and all I had to do was sit down and start.

The materials I used were:

Watercolor Paper

Liquid Watercolor in Carbon Black (yes I know it is technically not ink, but I’m a watercolor kind of girl!) 

Pencils in HB and H  

Eraser 

Pencil Sharpener 

Brushes (I am loving these at the moment!)

Everyday I would get up early to do my Inktober painting, it was like an early morning workout for my art. Immediately after I finished the days’ piece I would Instagram it. 

I feel that during the month my use of values has really improved, at the beginning the paintings all have the same middle grey tones, but by the end I definitely noticed I was using a greater range of values. After Inktober, I also feel that I am more comfortable with my character design, I felt myself being able to draw my characters with more ease and quickness while still being able to have them look the same everytime I drew them. 

One thing that I got from this experience, that I did not expect was posting to Instagram became easier for me. Before Inktober, when I went to post my work to Instagram I would tend to get self-conscious and would hesitate posting because I would wonder if it was good enough to share online. Now I feel that I do not have as many of these thoughts because during Inktober I had to just post it every day no matter what. 

I was physically tired after the 31st, my back aced and my wrist was sore, but I am so happy I stuck with it and completed a painting everyday in October! I feel that I accomplished even more than what I set out to do!  

Check out my Instargram to see all of my Inktober illustrations. If you want to find out more about Inktober go to Jake Parker’s website, he is the talented and inspiring artist behind this challenge! Also take a look at #inktober, there are so many amazing artists out there!

Congratulations to everyone who Inktobered this year!

And now I am off to paint with all the colors!

Anna