Every October, artists all over the world take on the Inktober drawing challenge by doing one ink drawing a day the entire month. At ILS, art students took the challenge and ran with it, posting their completed works on the school’s Instagram page.

Inktober was created in 2009 as a challenge to improve artists skills and develop positive drawing habits. Since then it has grown into a worldwide endeavor with thousands of artists taking on the challenge every year.

Inktober is just a framework for artists to draw better, flex a little, and have fun with their art. Inktober is a challenge, not a contest to see who the best artist is. It’s a challenge to see how much an artist can improve their work in a month, and to be inspired or to help inspire other artists to do the same.⁣

Inktober was brought to the ILS community by sophomore Nicolas Luaces. He came up with the idea for ILS art students to participate in the worldwide challenge. Luaces was inspired by Jake Parker, a well-known graphic artist, to present the challenge to ILS.

“The Inktober challenge is very fun take part in wether you’re an artist or not since it’s something anyone could do,” said Luaces. “What inspired me the most is my experience with Inktober. I was a artist at one point and Inktober was around the corner so I brought the idea up to Ms. Spencer and she ended up liking it.”

The Inktober rules are:

1. Make a drawing in ink.
2. Post it online/or send it to the ILS Instagram.
3. Make sure to hashtag it with #inktober

Inktober started posting their official prompt lists in 2016. Prior to that people just came up with their own ideas for each day.

The official Inktober prompt list is on posted on Jake Parker’s website. You can either follow the everyday prompts or draw whatever you would like!

“Inktober is just a fun way to get student participation but also to challenge art students to be more creative,” said ILS’s Marketing and Social Media Coordinator, Ms. Giovanna Spencer. Ms. Spencer also teaches the Yearbook classes and is the moderator for Signum, the school’s yearbook publication.

Many students have already participated in the challenge via Instagram or in their classrooms.

“I love the idea of Inktober because it’s super cute to see the drawings all on the Instagram and seeing the creativity within the ILS students,” said junior Alyssa Vega.

Inktober is all about pushing your creative limits. It gives you the chance to flex those imagination muscles and figure out creative solutions, so participate in the challenge!

“The art students participation in #Inktober has been such an enriching and community based experience,” said Ms. Camille Wildenburg, the Fine Arts department head at ILS. “It allows students to get their work out in to the global platform through their beautiful artistic ink creations.”

You can see all of the #Inktober posts on the ILS Instagram page.