Everyone who’s anyone on Instagram would know what Inktober is. Every October, artists around the world commit to a 31-day long challenge to their artistic stamina that requires them to draw every day for the entire month of October. Each of their drawings is usually expected to match a list of thirty-one word prompts released by Inktober.com but that’s entirely up to the artist. Anyone can release their own prompt list, you can too. The interesting bit is how many people out their pick it up and interpret the same words in their own whacky way. Next time October comes around, witness how Instagram floods with art from artists everywhere, arting purely for the joy of arting.
This October I followed the word prompt list released by Current Conservation, an Indian magazine that publishes the adventures, research, and findings of professionals associated with ecological conservation. (I highly recommend subscribing). I think this prompt list of theirs was a very successful endeavor in its attempt to raise awareness about, not only our natural environment but the magazine itself.
I didn’t actually complete all 31 days (looks to the floor in shame), but I managed to keep it up till day 25... with breaks in the middle (you can find them at the bottom of the page).
During the course of this meditative process, naturally, I found myself wrestling questions in my head… not all of which are entirely relevant to conservation, but I’ll take you through them anyway.
I would first sketch out the art into a regular 140gsm paper sketchbook, and ink it with a couple of manga nibs I bought from Japan.
Ink-tober doesn’t mandatorily require the use of ink, I just love the medium.
Or do I?
I certainly haven’t yet picked it up fluently. Using waterproof ink meant I had to clean the nib before the ink dried onto it, which I strangely didn’t develop a habit of. Instead, the ink would dry and the nib would get clogged, to which my response was to press harder onto the paper.
Big no no! My lines were getting scruffier, and the paper filling up with blots of ink that would suddenly slip out of the nib.
Pause… Deep breath. I cleaned my nib in acetone and grabbed a cup of coffee. I don’t often take breaks when I’m painting, a bad habit mind you. I guess it’s the excitement of seeing what I’m creating that keeps me glued to my table. Once it’s all over, I get up with fatigue in my right arm, shoulder and sometimes lower back, feeling victorious. Now I can peacefully sink into the couch and complain to mom about my arm.
For now I’m not done, my thoughts wander back to my desk while I’m in the kitchen sipping coffee. Screw it, I’ll just take the coffee with me. My nibs is sparkling clean. I fasten it to the holder, dip into the ink, carefully, only half way and feel it glide across the paper. A few strokes here, a few there. Don’t forget to wipe it clean!
The inked drawing goes through the scanner and onto my iPad where I fill in the color. This is the less fun part. Digital painting is comparable to being filthy rich in the real world, your mistakes barely have consequences and therefore one can afford to be careless. I noticed that my skills developed much faster with traditional media, where I was more careful and aware that I had much at stake with every stroke of the brush. That being said, digital media are still tools like any other and therefore open doors to a realm of new possibility, which, unfortunately, most of us don’t enter because we’re busy trying to use it to simulate traditional media.
Is it wrong to attempt to replicate the organic quality of traditional media? No, but these attempts will never come close to the real deal. For example, I’m quite fond of the plimsole brush that the Procreate offers, and that’s what I used for most of my art in this Inktober series. Now, imagine, had i actually painted on plimsole… One could hold the painting, feel it, smell it and enjoy all it’s facets. Not to mention, I’d have had way more fun painting. But, I don’t have any plimsole cloth at my disposal. Even though my digital paintings don’t match the quality of plimsole fabric, the Procreate app's given me access to something that comes so close to it. Moreover, it’s given me the chance to mix this texture with my (very average) ink drawings.
Each of these paintings gets uploaded to my Instagram alongside a caption and a couple of hashtags. I also made sure to tag Current Conservation, since they’d been reposting posts they really liked. Then I’d wait. The first couple days of October were terrible. I couldn’t put down my phone. I’d constantly be refreshing my Instagram to check for new comments, follows, likes and messages. Was my work skillful? Was it novel? Was it impactful? Can we gauge all this by the popularity it got on social media? Perhaps not. Definitely not. The engagement my posts were receiving was on a steady rise as I posted almost on a daily basis. Somewhere around the twentieth day, it plummeted out of nowhere. I resumed my incessant phone checking, anxious to find out why. Had the quality of my content reduced? I’ll never really know but I’d like to believe not. I also found that the Instagram algorithm restricts users’ reach if the same hashtags are used on a number of consecutive posts. #inktober2020
I guess there’s no way of measuring the actual impact of art. Not because you can’t trust the algorithm, but because you can’t really tell if it inspires change in the audience. Change is, after all, what we actually strive to achieve isn’t it? But I think I’m satisfied knowing that I’m striving. The rest is up to you.
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