As October meets its end, so too does the social media art trend #Inktober.
According to the official Inktober website, the trend is a month-long art challenge created by New York Times bestselling illustrator Jake Parker, who is based out of Arizona. Every day in October, artists from across the globe create ink drawings and post them online.
The website says “Inktober is about growing, improving and forming positive habits so the more you’re consistent, the better.”
Artists are given one prompt every day to inspire their daily drawings. The prompts include words that spark creativity — some examples from this year’s prompts are fuzzy, risk, sour, vessel and raven.
The trend gained a lot of traction over the years where it flooded Instagram feeds annually and was used in art classrooms as an exercise for students.
Gabriela Buraglia, a third-year St. Thomas University fine arts student, comes from an artistically-inclined family and said that she “always had a passion for fine arts.”
Some artists choose to make their challenges more specific such as those who participate in Goretober, an unofficial version of Inktober where artists follow prompts relating to blood, injuries and gore.
As the themes in Goretober can get intense, Buraglia chooses to follow the milder prompts of Inktober.
“What I usually participate in and like to do is the little cutesy ones,” said Buraglia.
Because of her busy schedule as a student, Buraglia didn’t participate in Inktober, but kept an eye on other artists’ creations during the month.
“I’m very meticulous and I take a lot of time when it comes to making a painting or drawing,” said Buraglia. “But I do check in to see what other artists have been creating.”
She said that the variation in prompts that Inktober offers helps her get out of her comfort zone and encourages her to draw other things, as opposed to the portraits she normally creates.
“I’m not someone who works a lot with drawing or painting animals. So, [Inktober] definitely helped me with that. Because I’m more of a portrait kind of person … So, I think it’s a very fun thing that people do every Halloween, but it definitely helps as well,” said Buraglia.
With over two million posts on this year’s Inktober hashtag on Instagram, the trend continues its annual cycle of creation, experimentation and celebration of the arts.
