I joined the global illustration-a-day challenge again this year and [drew] it through to the end, despite it all.

For many illustrators and artists around the globe, October has become synonymous with “Inktober” - a daily drawing challenge inspired by one-word prompts and sharing the artworks on Instagram.

The concept was originally started in 2009 by Jake Parker (a well-known name in the illustration industry for his highly detailed ink-styled art) as “a challenge to improve his inking skills and develop positive drawing habits” - Inktober. Because the technical rule for participating in the “official” Inktober is to create artwork using only tangible forms of ink on paper, I decided this year to participate in #Peachtober (a popular alternative list of prompts created by Australian illustrator, Furry Little Peach) as it is open to all mediums and I wanted to use my recently purchased iPad for the challenge. Also because I like to play by the rules, I couldn’t go drawing digitally for the ink-based challenge, now could I…

At the start of the month, I set out my parameters for the style going forward. I find it not only helps with overall consistency but it also takes the guesswork out of doing this every day for 31 days (the prompts can only give you so much, and a month is a long time when you have to show up daily).

My stylistic choices this year were to stick with a monochrome pencil-style brush, an ivory white background, and most significantly, create them within an isometric perspective (i.e. a technical drawing method for visually representing 3D objects in 2D) - I used a grid in Procreate to help with this (see the end of the post for more).

But art and style aside, what I found during this month was that not all days are creat(ively) equal.

Some days, the prompts were just not inspiring or I struggled to think outside of the literal word, with others the end product was frankly a bit embarrassing to post (but I shared them nonetheless, and after a few redraws you just have to count your losses and move on). While other days’ were fluid and delightfully surprising and are ones I’m looking forward to recreating in colour and building upon in more detail in the near future. I’ll leave you to decide which of the finished illustrations fall into which category for yourself…

When starting the challenge too, you’re committing a full calendar month to drawing every day, and not only making the commitment to yourself and your iPad/sketchbook, but to your how-many followers on Instagram who dare to care (if any, it can feel). But you’re also committing to doing this thing despite what personal challenges, bad days, mad days and busy days you don’t even know are coming your way, and doing it anyway. For me, when starting this on 1 October I had pictured just another “normal” month ahead for myself. Nowhere in my vision did I expect that halfway through this unsuspecting October of 2022, I would lose a parent and find myself traveling to the other side of the world to deal with the loss.

So while this month has been a very uncertain and emotionally trying one, having had the daily routine and commitment to picking up the pencil and creating something from a blank page, a single word, and often very low expectations, it has in some way helped me through it.

So, after 31 days of drawing, I hope you enjoy what I have to show for it:

Here is a behind-the-scenes peek into my Inktober page set up in Procreate with the isometric grid to help with the 3D perspective.

If you’ve enjoyed following along, I’d love to know what you thought!

Pop me an email to amy@studioslatem.com or follow me @studioslatem for design, and @shmaymee for the more random illustration musings.