Month: November 2023

There are many drawing challenges out there. The most well known challenge is probably Inktober.

For those who don’t know what this challenge is: The people who run the challenge creates a prompt list. There is a new prompt for every day in October. Their stated purpose is to give both amateur and professional artists a challenge as well as a way to gain some potential attention for their work. They share several works by different artists for every prompt. There are no requirement for you to do all the prompts. You will have to decide this for yourself. They also have a weekly challenge where they have a new prompt for each week of the year.

There also are other alternatives to inktober in October. Some of them go for a 31-day prompt list with an overarching theme, while others go for shorter prompt lists with an overacrhing theme. Such as the drawtober challenge which gives you a six prompt challenge with an overarching theme that changes each year. This year they even had prices you could win.

There are instragram pages that run new monthly challenges all year long. There is the “Mermay” challenge hosted by a page on instagram every may for those who are intrested in mermaid-art. In other words, if you want to challenge yourself for what ever reason or if you want access to prompt lists that might help you with ideas and personal development as an artist. There are many available options for you. Simply googling “prompt list art” or “inktober” should provide you with some good choices.

Personally, I find these challenges to be super hard. So, I guess its not for everyone. When I have attempted both the inktober challenge and a challenge called drawtober. I often get stuck on the idea that I have to do every single prompt, even tho that is not a requirement. Its not like they track each and every individual artists involvement and progress. The challenges in and of themselves is something that is offered to you as a place to get ideas, stay engaged, but most of all challenge yourself.

I guess, I will just have to work on not being so hard on myself when i fail to reach some pretty large goals that I often don’t really have the time or energy to finish. I also thought it would be fun to talk about some of them now that we find ourselves in November. Safely away from inktober (insert laugh/cry emoji here).

Ive tried inktober several times with varying results. This year I decided to give the drawtober challenge a try. 6 prompts seemed far more doable than 31. I managed 3. As it turns out Im not good with the whole following a prompt-list. I work far better if I have an idea and follow that idea until completion. Luckily, I have ideas for drawings all the time and a fairly good system of how to keep the ideas for later. I keep a sketchbook where I do quick sketches with notes. That way i don’t loose them. As a practice this works really well for me.

Disclaimer: I am not affiliated with inktober, drawtober, mermay or any other Instagram pages or companies that run art-challenges. The purpose of this post is to talk about existing challenges as a way of sharing my personal experience and share some related art.