How I survived Inktober/Peachtober 2022

December 05, 2022

How I survived Inktober/Peachtober 2022

Inktober/Peachtober 2022 sketchbook

I never thought I'd be able to take on Inktober

[In case you don't know what Inktober is - it's a 31-day drawing challenge started by Jake Parker that takes place every October (Ink + October = Inktober). The intention is to improve one's skills in drawing and inking by making a drawing every day for a month. Jake Parker provides a list of prompts every year and thousands of people now participate in the challenge. It has become so popular that it has spawned drawing/art challenges that go beyond ink, such as paint, digital art, and so on. At the same time, different artists have begun creating their own prompt list. For example, I used Furry Little Peach's (Sha'an D'Anthes) prompt list this year, and she calls the whole exercise Peachtober.]

As usual, I was going to sit out Inktober this year. Here's why.

Chronic illness and full-time work

I have two full-time jobs - managing chronic illness and sociological research on refugees and Myanmar. Managing chronic illness - taking medication, supplements, cooking all my meals, resting, doing therapies, researching symptoms and so on - takes up all my waking hours and most of my energy, and it keeps me from being more ill. The other job - eight hours a day of reading, writing, conducting interviews, editing, managing people - pays the bills.

I have wanted to participate in Inktober for years. But every year, the thought of coming up with an idea based on a prompt, completing a drawing and posting 31 days in succession on top of my two full-time jobs had me spinning in anxiety and overwhelm.

Ikku イックウ　(一空）
the intrepid introverted space person

Difficulty drawing from imagination and drawing to order

Up until September this year, I believed that I couldn't draw from imagination. Every time I tried to draw from my imagination, the result was awful.

Not having a consistent style

I didn't believe I would be able to create drawings in a consistent style. I believed this would make for an uneven and uncomfortable viewing experience for my followers.

What changed this year?

I quit my job

This means I only have one full-time job now: managing chronic illness. All the creative energy and time that went into my paid job can now be used for other important things, such as managing my health and engaging in creative endeavours.

I figured out a method of drawing from imagination

I watched Furry Little Peach's video on preparing for Peachtober this year

It was the 29th of September and I was watching Furry Little Peach (Sha'an D'Anthes) go through her list of prompts for Peachtober. As I watched her describe possible ideas for each prompt, something clicked in my mind and my heart began to race. It dawned on me that completing Inktober might be possible using her prompts because many of my sketches could be easily modified to fit them.

Filled with excitement and trepidation, I sat down immediately after the video and created 11 drawings based on her prompts. I also came up with ideas for 10 more, and had 10 left to figure out.

Buzzing with excitement, I thought to myself, hmm I can figure them out as I go along.

In my mind, I was jumping up and down, shouting, haha! We can do this. It's doable!

I reexamined my assumptions about what participating in Inktober entails

I began to rethink my notions of how participation in Inktober should look like and what outcomes I should have. This resulted in an exploration of what perfectionism means to me.

When reading about artists' experience of letting go of perfectionism, I often feel smug. Yeah, I think, I don't suffer from that.

However, when I felt fear and anxiety rising in me at the prospect of participating in a 31-day drawing challenge, I realised that I didn't have anything to be smug about.

In order to understand where my unease was coming from, I had to figure out what perfection actually means for me in the context of Inktober. I say 'in the context of Inktober' because I realise that, for me, the definition of perfectionism depends on the circumstances, such as what I am working on, whether I am posting it on social media or showing it to others and so on. And, of course, this boils down to my sense of identity and how I want others to perceive me.

This led to an examination of my long-held notions of 1) what Inktober is meant to achieve and 2) what my participation would look like.

What I believed Inktober is meant to achieve

What I love about Inktober is all the wonderful art that is produced, particularly work that is created in a consistent style, that is done in a series or that tells a story over 31 drawings, that offers novel and unusual ways of interpreting the prompts, that is well-executed, and that can be turned into a product.

I'd always believed that was the way to do Inktober.

In my mind, if I could not deliver on this, Inktober would be a failure. Since I knew I could not achieve this, participating only brought on fear and anxiety.

What I believed participation in Inktober looked like

Inktober is a daily challenge for 31 days. I always believed that meant doing a drawing each day, and then posting that drawing on the day.

I love the way artists have found ways to present their art and process that are visually pleasing and engaging. For example, I observed artists working in a sketchbook and doing a flip-through once the challenge was over. I also enjoy the process videos and photos that they post every day.

And finally, I noticed that they would get a lot of publicity and engagement on social media.

Making it MY Inktober

Knowing that I couldn't undertake Inktober in these ways without drowning in anxiety and stress, I decided to do it my way.

I revised my idea of Inktober as a project to produce a series of high quality drawings in a consistent style on a daily basis and posting videos of their process on social media daily to a drawing activity that is joyful, fun and easy.

This turned out to be a drawing that I really enjoyed making. It began as a series of squares and rectangles which I turned into boxes and tubes. I joined up all the parts to create a machine that sucks in clouds and transforms them into snow. It was such fun to create this whimsical device.

I decided to keep things simple. I'd use a ballpoint pen, my A6 sketchbook, pencil and eraser. I hoped to come up with interesting and novel ideas for the prompts but was willing to forego this if it wasn't possible.

I also went through all of my assumptions about how Inktober should be done and came up with my own code of conduct.

I discarded notions of consistent style, and creating a series of drawings and a product

I believed that I didn't yet have a consistent drawing style. This meant giving up on the idea of creating a consistent body of work for the month and turning it into a product. Instead, I decided to use this drawing challenge as part of my journey towards discovering my style.

I gave myself permission to ignore prompts and skip days

For the life of me I could not find a way to make a drawing for the prompt 'trunk' interesting or even nice. I also had a problem with 'sleepy'. So I posted drawings that had absolutely nothing to do with those prompts .

My substitute drawings for the prompts 'trunk' and 'sleepy' respectively.

I planned ahead, mined my sketchbook and worked in batches

The first drawing I did for this challenge was this boot, which was the drawing for Day 19.

I did all the drawings for the prompts that I could (which came up to 11) and went on to mine my sketchbook. I customised sketches I had already made. This made my complete drawing count a whopping 21 even before the challenge had begun.

I knew then that I would be able to complete 31 drawings during the challenge.

Sketchbooks I mined for Inktober/Peachtober

I kept my drawings small

Most of them ranged between 2 x 2 cm and 6 x 6 cm. Only a handful were A6 in size.

I simplified the way I presented and posted my work

In an ideal world, I would have taken and edited multiple photos of my sketches and process, filmed and edited reels and videos of myself drawing, posted them at times that had the most traffic on Instagram and Facebook, researched the most relevant hashtags, and posted to various Facebook groups with captions relevant to those particular groups. This would have worked towards increasing engagement on these two social media platforms and getting more followers.

Just the thought of doing all this made me feel overwhelmed.

So I didn't.

I opted for the simplest route - taking a photo of the drawing and editing it on my phone before posting it online. Unfortunately, this didn't work out very well because there was not enough light in my flat and the photo turned out too dark. So I scanned the drawings in batches and adjusted the brightness and contrast individually in Photoshop.

This is how the posts looked on my Instagram feed.

My drawings on my Instagram account

Did I achieve my goals of having a joyful, fun and easy drawing challenge?

Yes.

I really enjoyed the challenge. I'd say that I found it fun 80 per cent of the time and easy 60 per cent of the time.

Although I completed many of the drawings in the first week, I felt slightly anxious about whether I'd be able to get all the prompts done during the challenge. However, having many of the drawings under my belt gave me a lot of breathing room and time to play with ideas for prompts that had to be done in the third and fourth weeks. I had also given myself an out - I could skip days or ignore prompts.

By the second week, I was more relaxed because I had completed and/or had ideas and sketches for the rest of the prompts.

I was done with all the sketches in the third week. This freed me up to make more drawings both related and unrelated to the drawing prompts.

The rest of the time was spent enjoying the thoughts and comments of friends and followers on my Instagram and Facebook accounts, and marvelling at the fact that I actually completed a 31-day drawing challenge!

In short, my strategy for completing Inktober/Peachtober was to enter unemployment and to accept being imperfect. Or rather to accept that there is no such thing as perfection.

Free card featuring Bougainvillea Thorne

So that's how I survived Inktober/Peachtober. Although I didn't create a product of all my drawings, I did make this holiday card based on Bougainvillea Thorne, one of the characters I drew during the challenge.

You can download it for free!