My Love-Hate Relationship with Inktober

Without fail, every year around this time, leaves start to turn and the smell of pumpkin spice perfumes the autumn air. While other people are rewatching <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hocus_Pocus_(1993_film)" rel="noopener ugc nofollow" target="_blank">Hocus Pocus</a> or going to Loews to buy a 12-foot skeleton, naming it Ed, and posing it provocatively in their front yard, I’m breaking out my Micron ink pens and dusting off my sketchbook. For the past four years, I have been participating in the month-long art exercise called <a href="https://inktober.com/" rel="noopener ugc nofollow" target="_blank">Inktober</a>. According to <a href="https://brushwarriors.com/what-is-inktober/" rel="noopener ugc nofollow" target="_blank">Brushwarriers.com</a>, the drawing challenge was started in 2009 by Jake Parker, an online illustrator. Meant to help artists brush up, pun intended, on their inking skills, the challenge asks artists to draw through a series of prompts using only black ink and a sketchbook. This challenge is especially helpful for beginning artists because only drawing in black and white forces you to think about line weight, composition, and values. These are all things that I still struggle with, and even after drawing for 31 days straight for the past four years, I’m still learning, and I’m still growing as an artist. <a href="https://medium.com/@merlinamcgovern_47148/my-love-hate-relationship-with-inktober-551895406989">Click Here</a>