What 1-month Drawing Challenge Taught Me | [ My Inktober 2017 Experience ]

I finally did the Inktober challenge this year. And I'm obviously really glad that I did it. For those who are not familiar with this term, I would like to give a short introduction about this challenge. Since 2009, an artist named Jake Parker started a challenge called 'Inktober'. It's quite noticeable that the name is derived from 'ink' + 'October'. So, the concept in this challenge is that you should draw 31 drawings, one drawing each day, for the whole month of October, using ink. The way you use ink may be different. You can use ink pen or brush with ink bottle. Anyways, Jake Parker started this and now this challenge is huge. If you search for the keyword 'inktober' anywhere from google and youtube to instagram and facebook, you can find millions of related posts, articles, pictures and videos. Well, this year I attempted the challenge and I finally completed it. Overall, it was an exciting and intense experience for me. And obviously it brought some positive changes within me. The biggest thing is that I learned and achieved what I might not have if I hadn't attempted the challenge. Some of them which I remember are:

Improvement: It's very obvious that if you practice something regularly, you'll surely see improvement in it, whether it's a skill, language or habit. And drawing every single day for a month brought a great improvement in my drawing skill, especially in terms of drawing with an ink pen without pencil sketch.

Better Habit: As a child I always said I wanted to be an artist but it's been quite a long time since I did a proper drawing or painting last time. And this challenge brought the passion and excitement back. I'm now not hesitant to draw everyday.

No Procrastination: Since I had to draw every single day, I stuck to the resolution and did my drawing challenge every single day. However, I had to skip day 24 and 25 because of very urgent work but I covered them in 1st and 2nd of November. This helped me a lot in overcoming my habit of procrastinating.

Confidence: I wasn't sure if I could complete this challenge or not while I started. With time, I grew more and more confident day by day. By the end of the day 31, I emerged out as a confident guy, ready to draw anything.

Endurance: The challenge was so intense for me. Because of limited equipment I was limited to drawing for about 30 t0 40 minutes. I was determined to upload a video every single day. So, shooting the drawing video, editing it and uploading it by the end of the day was quite a work of pressure. Twice or more I had to re-edit everything and upload the next day. So, I had a tough time getting things on time. However, I didn't give up. I maintained my self-discipline and completed the 1-month long challenge. This gave me strength to work under intense pressure and still stay steady.

Delayed Gratification: This is something many of us fail in. We look for immediate result and give up before achieving success. Had I thought "It's too intense and full of pressure. I should stop it", I wouldn't have this great experience today. So, I think I was able to delay gratification and stick to my goal.

Connection with Fellow Artists: Inktober is a challenge done by artists almost all over the world. And I came through many artists who were doing this challenge. Some of them appreciated my effort and I was able to connect to them through social media. It is obviously a great feeling to be acquainted to the people having same interests and passion as yours. Well, more remarkably, I was able to receive response from the artist Jake Parker himself. Since I skipped day 24 and day 25, I sent a direct message to his Instagram account, asking for his suggestion, and to my pleasant surprise, he reached back to me and said "No problem. Just make up the days in november. It's ok to post inktober drawings in November".

To sum up, the challenge obviously did good to me. And when I hold those 31 sheets of drawings, there certainly is a sense of achievement. Though it's not a huge achievement compared to so many other things I could achieve in my life, the beauty of life is in aiming for big goals, yet enjoying the little achievements. 

Click HERE to have a look at my inktober drawings.

Watch the video where I shared my Inktober experience, with the showcase of all of my 31 drawings: