I am so happy that I decided to participate in Inktober this year. It was so much fun. Getting back into drawing everyday again has been so therapeutic and seeing the growth in just that short time is so satisfying.

With something like this I normally reach a point of burn out, find that I am frustrated that I still have to do my sketch that day, or run out of ideas. The quality and motivation usually suffer. That didn’t happen this time! I think having the prompt list in advance let me ponder the ideas to see what I could come up with. Sometimes the prompt worked first, sometimes I had a completely separate idea that happened to work with one of the prompts. Sometimes I just gathered a pile of new ideas to put out when Inktober was all done. It was a lot of fun to experience.

It didn’t hurt either that I liked each sketch better than the last one. It’s easy to be discouraged with a project when the sketches aren’t coming out like you had hoped. Each sketch worked out though. Almost always, they were different from what I had initially pictured, but usually for the better. All of your responses and encouragement along the way really kept me going too. It’s fun to see how different ideas hit out in the world. For instance, you all LOVED the “Buddy” Rubber Duck. I felt it was a good idea, but you all freaked out! Thank you 🙂

I try to let my sketches do their thing. Letting the sketch pull itself together usually results in something that I like a lot better than if I tried to force it into something else. For example, the “RIP” prompt, my mind went from rip to tear to tear, so I was drawing an eye. I set out to do something realistic and shiny with the tear, but the shape screamed zentangle opportunity to me. So I tried it. The contrast in this sketch has opened the flood gates! Combining a few styles I have worked with in the past seems to be the key to what I might have been missing. I can’t stop now!

Another helpful factor was the convenient placement of Adobe MAX right at a point where I might normally get a little discouraged or frustrated, even though none of that was in sight. The creativity talks at MAX really encouraged daily sketch work, or at least work in what you do, and this lit a fire to keep going.

This is something that, as you all know, I have been trying to achieve: a daily illustration/creative output. I have been creating everyday, but in a more scattered way. I have tried many different things to get things rolling but none really stuck. With Inktober, I posted immediately that I would do it, holding myself accountable, took any voice in my head that said “You won’t do this!” and turned it into fuel, and never wavered once.

I do really want to keep up with the daily creative work. As I mentioned last week, I am overflowing with creative ideas and I can’t get them out fast enough. A daily post should hopefully keep me moving. Thank you so much to all of you who interacted with me on the socials during all of this, you really kept me going and I hope you’ll stick around to see what’s coming next. If there’s anything you’d like to see please let me know and I’ll use that for my prompt that day 😀

Happy November everyone!