Inktober is an international drawing challenge where you draw a picture every day based on a given prompt and then share it with other people, for example on social media. I took part in Inktober for the first time in 2023 and completed all 31 days. (more: https://www.paulik.at/en/inktober-2023-en/) Last year, I decided to create an animated video every day using Flipaclip, which I only managed to do for a few days, but it was still very exciting. 😊 (more: https://www.paulik.at/en/first-experiments-with-flipaclip/) This year, I had another “classic” Inktober, where I drew normally throughout the entire month.
What was completely new this year, however, was that I offered a meet-up on “Verbal to Visual” for anyone who wanted to take part in Inktober. The aim was to create a completely informal space for exchange, encouragement, and sharing the joy of drawing. It was incredibly nice to meet up with like-minded people on a regular basis, and although not all of us completed the entire Inktober, we had a lot of fun together and it was very inspiring.
At the very beginning of the challenge, I came up with a little artist that I wanted to use as the main character in 2025. My goals for this Inktober were:
– to really draw every day and see what spontaneously came to mind when I thought of the terms
– to keep the drawings simple (without shadows and too many details) so that they could be completed quickly
– to use typography as a design element and integrate the term into the drawing every day in a font that matched it.
I also wanted to enjoy Inktober and not stress about it. I’m really proud that I managed to do that quite well, and on the two or three occasions when I was really too tired and had too much to do, I simply took a day off and then caught up again in a relaxed manner. Tanja Wehr’s book “Meine 40 besten Alphabete für Sketchnotes, Flipcharts & mehr” was a really great inspiration for the fonts, and I also came up with some fonts myself, which worked surprisingly well.
Over the course of the month, the little artist even got a name (ARisTide) and met a little girlfriend. It’s always exciting to see how the characters develop a life of their own over the course of the month. I enjoyed coming up with something from the field of art for each term—some artistic technique or some reference to a work of art. Sometimes I did some research – and learned a lot of new things in the process. For example, that Auguste Rodin painted a very famous still life with onions and that Adobe’s AI graphics program is called Firefly. And sometimes I tried out the techniques I came up with for the drawings myself. 🌞
It’s always impressive when you have all your drawings collected in front of you at the end of Inktober. That’s when you often realize how much time and work went into them. As in 2023, I had 100 little booklets printed this year, collecting all the drawings. It doesn’t cost much and makes me and others very happy. And then you can even color in the pictures if you want to. 😊 This year, I also realized something that I actually wanted to do in 2023 but never got around to. I printed a T-shirt—just with transfer foil—and was able to wear it during the meetups. 🌞
But what I particularly like about Inktober is the diversity and community that develops when you draw together for a month. It’s so nice to see what others have come up with, how different their styles are, how funny, thoughtful, profound… drawings can be. As a small thank you, I sent booklets to my sketchnote friends and Inktober buddies, and it was so nice to imagine the letters traveling to all corners of the world, and it was also great that everyone was so happy about it. It’s just something else when you hold something real in your hands and really connect with each other. Overall, this Inktober was simply fantastic and a real boost for creativity and community, for which I am incredibly grateful.
