It’s time for Inktober again, and that means it’s your chance to share your ink drawings with us for a chance to win some awesome art supplies! What is Inktober? Artist Jake Parker began this drawing movement in 2009 to motivate artists of all skill levels around the world–including you–to practice art every day for the month of October. 
To encourage you to participate, we’re inviting you to post your daily ink drawings on Instagram, Facebook, Pinterest, etc. and tag us @ArtistsNetwork (follow us!) and use the hashtag #Inktober. We’ll choose a random winner* to receive a sketchbook, sets of graphite drawing pencils, and more. In the meantime, keep reading to see how Inktober can have a big impact on your art (and life). ~Cherie
Can Inktober Change Your Life? by Jake Parker
I can’t tell you how many e-mails, messages, and comments I’ve received from people telling me that Inktober got them drawing again. They tell me that for years they hadn’t really drawn or drawn anything for themselves, but committing to Inktober got them out of the slump and back into drawing and, more importantly, being creative.
I don’t think that it’s specifically Inktober that broke them out, but it’s because that they did a limited month-long challenge.
Do you like the feeling of being in a creative slump? Are you happy with the artistic level you are currently operating at right now? Are you satisfied with the amount of art you create in a month?
If you’re shaking your head as you read this, you need to take on an art challenge like Inktober.
Featured art by Jake Parker. Jake’s latest book ‘Little Bot and Sparrow’ from Roaring Brook Press is a story of friendship that can inspire anyone, even robots, to dream. Learn more about his book at www.littlebotandsparrow.com.
I think a drawing challenge like this works because of the following principles and benefits that are hard baked into it:
Constraints: When doing a challenge with a specific set of constraints, you eliminate most of your options, which allows you to focus on the creation of something. More options can lead to more opportunities to get frustrated and lose interest.
Inktober is about the constraint of medium. You must draw with ink. When you sit down to do the challenge you don’t have to decide what colors you’re going to use or whether you’ll be rendering in pencil or watercolor. Because the challenge has stripped away all of these variables that can get you sidetracked or frustrated, your creative energy can be focused straight into your drawing. Other constraints you can put on yourself are:
- Subject matter: You can tell yourself you’re just going to draw a different landscape or monster design for the month.
- Time: You can set a time limit, like 15 minutes or an hour, and see what you come up with in that time period.
- Style: Perhaps you want to develop a new style. Instead of rendering your drawing with cross-hatching you might stick to just drawing with swooping graceful linework.
- Tools: My first Inktober was all about putting my technical pens away and learning how to effectively use a brush pen.
Accountability: Once you start something with a specific end point (like 31 days), you have built-in motivation to get to that endpoint. You become accountable to yourself for that. But you also have built-in empathy for all your excuses, so you need to announce to friends, people on art forums or your online followers that you are doing this challenge. Knowing that you told someone you’re going to do something gives you that extra push of motivation.
There’s also a healthy Inktober community of artists to pull inspiration from and to help you motivate and inspire others. Find a group of artists who are doing the challenge and join them, or form your own Inktober group. You’ll feel accountable to these people and have more desire to finish the challenge.
Habit imprinting: The act of carving out 30-60 minutes EVERY day and physically doing something starts you on the path of forming a habit. Some studies say it takes 30 days of doing something to form a habit. Stopping for just one day sets you back and works against you.
Charles Duhigg’s book The Power of Habit introduced me to the “habit loop.” I’ll let him explain it:
“First, there is a cue, a trigger that tells your brain to go into automatic mode and which habit to use. Then there is the routine, which can be physical or mental or emotional. Finally, there is a reward, which helps your brain figure out if this particular loop is worth remembering for the future. Over time, this loop … becomes more and more automatic. The cue and reward become intertwined until a powerful sense of anticipation and craving emerges.”
When you create something there’s a handful of rewards your brain associates with it. There’s a sense of accomplishment that feels good. There’s the reaction from others to the thing you created. Perhaps there’s a relief that it’s over and you can check it off your list. Maybe your brain just likes the extra activity going on up there.
Inktober forces you to create something every day. By doing that your brain gets this little daily reward and soon starts to crave it. You give it a cue by reminding yourself it’s time to do the drawing, then you go through the routine of creating it, then you share it with others, or you just admire what you created and your brain gets the reward it craved.
Macro Goals and Micro quotas: Big goals really work. Envisioning yourself obtaining the thing you want to accomplish gives your challenge more gravitational mass to suck you into it. But big goals can also be overwhelming and accomplishing them might feel impossible. Especially when our daily activities rarely produce dramatic results.
Doing a daily challenge introduces micro-quotas that help you to balance your big goal with what you’re doing day-to-day to accomplish it. Your micro quotas are the things you do each day to accomplish the big thing. Instead of getting overwhelmed by doing 31 drawings, you just tell yourself you need to ONE drawing that day. This makes your big goal approachable, and ultimately achievable. It trains you to accomplish big things by breaking them down into manageable bites.
Mental growth: Your brain loves the kind of stimulation a drawing challenge offers. Creative problem solving has proven to be one of the best forms of mental growth. Sitting down each day to solve the problem a blank sheet of paper offers you fires up your neurons and forces you into higher modes of thinking. It forces you to think outside of the box.
After about 10 days into every Inktober I think, “Oh boy, I’m out of ideas.” It’s usually around this time that I start doing really off-the-wall stuff that sparks a new flavor of creativity in me and sets me off in a new, more exciting direction. The first 10 days is all my old tricks, the last 21 days are exciting and invigorating because I’m covering new ground.
These five things carry considerable power. It’s power that can break you out of a creative slump. It’s power that can elevate your ability to new levels. It’s power that can turn you into the prolific creator you want to be.
Which could very well be life changing.
Are you ready to take on the Inktober challenge? Here are the rules:
1) Make a drawing in ink (you can do a pencil under-drawing if you want).
2) Post it online (Tumblr, Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, Pinterest, or just pin it on your wall.)
3) Hashtag it with #Inktober (Extra credit: Tag @ArtistsNetwork for your chance to win a package of drawing supplies!)
4) Repeat
Note: You can do it daily, or go the half-marathon route and post every other day, or just do the 5K and post once a week. Whatever you decide, just be consistent with it. Inktober is about growing and improving and forming positive habits, so the more you’re consistent the better off you’ll be.
That’s it! Now go make something beautiful. ~Jake
Bio: Jake Parker is a New York Times Bestselling Illustrator and an author of several graphic novels and books for kids. Parker created Inktober in 2009 to get better at inking. Seven years later it has become a worldwide phenomenon with millions of ink drawings created by thousands of artists since its inception. Jake’s home on the internet is www.mrjakeparker.com. He can also be found posting on Instagram under the handle @jakeparker and sharing more of his ideas about art on his YouTube channel.
*Enter the Inktober challenge with ArtistsNetwork for your chance to win drawing supplies:
Share your ink drawings on social media through the month of October, using the hashtag #Inktober and tag us @ArtistsNetwork. Winner will be chosen November 1, 2016. Must be a U.S. resident due to international contest rules and regulations.
The post Inktober Daily Drawing Challenge 2016 | Draw, Share, Win! appeared first on Artist's Network.
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