From Worst to Wonder- what Inktober shows me

 

Ornament

For a couple of years, I'd scroll past Inktober drawings on social media. Eventually, in 2019, I decided to try it myself. Ornament is not my first one. My first prompt was ring. I tried to twist it into something spooky, appropriate for October. It ended up being a rough sketch of a woman forced to wear a wedding ring, the band scraping her skin until blood welled up. An evil laughing man hovered in the background. Maybe even a haunted house on a hill. Messy, crude, melodramatic and currently misplaced. I can’t find the original hard copy nor the digital versions anywhere. It seems I deleted the drawing both on my Google photos and social media. Why did I delete it? Was I embarrassed by it? Probably.…

But if my first Inktober taught me anything, it’s that the first bad one (or any one for that matter) isn’t the end. It’s just a steppingstone you encounter before things get good. The “worst” day is often just the beginning of something better. If you stay with it, the repetition becomes a kind of rhythm, a space where ideas sneak up on you.

That’s the advice I’d give anyone staring down a month-long creative challenge: keep going. Your first drawing doesn’t have to prove anything. It just has to exist, so the next one has something to stand on. The progress will sneak in, sketch by sketch, until suddenly you notice you’re enjoying yourself.



This year, though, I’m sitting Inktober out. The prompts don’t spark much in me, and after five years straight, I feel ready to let it go- at least for this year. Instead, I’m looking ahead to Huevember- a month-long challenge in November that explores color, one hue at a time. Right now, that feels closer to where my imagination wants to go.

But I still encourage anyone curious to try Inktober. Even one messy page can open doors you don’t expect. You may think you’re making your “worst” work, but you’re more likely building a bridge toward something freer, that belongs uniquely to you.

Have you ever started something and felt clumsy at first, only to realize that those shaky beginnings were actually leading you somewhere? I’d love to hear your version of a ‘messy start’

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P.S. Here are my original notes from 2019, pasted just the way I wrote them.

What I’ve learned this month of drawing something every day 


-I can draw pretty well when I put my mind to it. I have the passion for communicating and conveying through art, that’s not the problem. The “problem” area is improving my technique.  I’m not that bad with details, but I I need to learn perspective and distance. Sometimes I actually am bad with details like for example, drawing fingers, hands, feet, noses, and arms bending, just to name a few. Despite all the things I need to improve on, I can honestly say that I really liked about ⅔ of my inktober drawings.


-I tend to draw women a lot. Women are very central in my drawing choices, as well as their thoughts and emotions.


-I like doing satire and definitely draw from movies, TV, and a little bit of music. Sometimes I refer to pop culture, but usually much older references. 


-Sometimes I would like how I drew one or two things in the drawing but wasn’t happy with how it came out overall. Sometimes it was the other way around- I would like how it came out overall but wouldn’t like how I drew something in it. 


-My aunt called my art “surreal.” One friend called it “high-concept” and another said “playful-” all artists themselves. I'm perfectly fine with being surreal as long as a clear, core message is being expressed. Being surreal is not my aim, it’s just the way it comes out sometimes.

 

-I still like doing my little pattern lines that I’ve done for years and years.


-Being consistent is great because I saw that my first one really was my worst and things only went up from there so that's pretty encouraging- for me and anyone else- in terms of making art, writing, or trying anything in general. I haven’t always been a consistent person so I’m surprised and proud that I came up with something every single day this month xoxox


I really like 24 of my drawings this month. I disliked about eight of them. Yes I did 32 because I did twice on Day 27 twice for coat mrs. Maisel and Cruella Deville. So are 32 I was very pleased with 24 of them and not so pleased with eight eight so that is actually up 1/3 in reduced fraction form I didn't like in 2/3 that I did like so that's pretty cool. I'll see how many I have to do with women, men, animals, TV shows, movies, music, emotional surreal conceptual humor satire, icon characters, children, sweet theme:


26 women, counting girls

11 men, counting boys

8 animals if you count the little shop of horrors plant monster Audrey 2

7 tv shows 

6 movies

3 music



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