Failing Creatively: Inktober 2024
Deciding if this challenge did or didn't make me an artist.
Another inktober has come and gone. For the first time in a few years, I have actually completed a full 31 drawings mostly on time. This year has been very difficult, between work and my kids’ activities it has been hard to keep up with everything. I have really been struggling to finish the fun things. My graphic design work and illustration jobs have grown. And add to that my kids’ activity schedule has also increased. I think it meant that I spent much of this year stretching myself really thin on the project front. This all made me more determined to finish this year’s daily art for no other reason than I needed to do a project that was just for me and my skill development.
The new things we try…
I decided to try working on backgrounds with the illustrations this time. I would love to reach a point where I am doing more children’s book illustrations and I am hoping that working on stretching my typical style in small ways will help me reach that goal. I’ve received plenty of polite rejections and ghosting, showing me that maybe my style isn’t what most agents are looking for, for now. Maybe working with more fun projects like this will change that with time.
By putting effort into backgrounds I hoped to give the action of the illustrations more focus, or at least feel less like they were floating in nothingness. The result is that there is only one where I didn’t put a background, because at that point in the month I hadn’t really decided to have more backgrounds. I enjoyed making the backgrounds and I think they add something to the illustrations that I was sorely lacking in the past.
I also focused on using my two favorite characters to draw. This really got tricky when the prompt word was Rhino, and I needed to draw Lulu the llama, but I think I found creative ways around it in the end. I find that by keeping some consistency in the characters I draw, increases the challenge. I like making it a bit more challenging by finding small ways to limit or constrain how I draw, because I think I produce better work when I do.
The things we learn…
If I continue to do this challenge in the future, I will need to take the month off from posting. This includes things like my good news and failing creatively. I tried to juggle both at the same time, and it didn’t work out well for me. So, I put the rest on pause while I focused on this challenge. Maybe next year October will be an off month for my newsletter. During this time, I will work on drawings that are just fun.
I would love to hear from others who took on this or another monthly challenge of this kind. How do you all handle the stress of producing something new daily? How do you handle when it takes longer than ten minutes? Or what do you do if you fall behind? I think in the end some fun pieces came out of this challenge and I am really proud of how the characters have developed over the years.
Thank you so much for joining me on my journey.
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These drawings are too cute!
This has been my first completed Inktober too (or any other challenge btw) and what I have made different this time is having the list of all prompts decided from day 1.
I’ve changed some subjects last minute, but in general, not having to think what to draw, find references, etc… in the same time slot I have for sketching has been a game changer for me.
As far as rejects. I’ve got hundreds of them. A director when picking an artist is like when you pick up food for the 4th of July. If I’m having a weenie roast I need hot dog buns not hamburger. And I like the taste of potato based buns. So the hamburger buns are perfectly fine but not needed for the picnic. This is how I view rejections