October Art Challenges: Inktober and Alternatives

Inktober has been a semi-defining feature of the digital art community for just over a decade. If you’re not familiar, don’t worry – we’ll cover what it is, how it works, and how you can participate! While it’s experienced some controversy in recent years, Inktober is ultimately a celebration of art and the people who create it, and it’s a great low-pressure community activity to help artists of all skill levels grow.

We’ve also got some fun natural-world-themed prompts for artists looking for Inktober-Alternatives, so stay tuned to the end to check those out! 

What is Inktober? 

A bit of history is in order. 

It all began in 2009. Looking to improve his own skills, American illustrator Jake Parker offered the internet a challenge: every day during the month of October a new one-word prompt would be provided. Artists everywhere were encouraged to interpret the prompt quickly, without much preplanning, and in ink – hence “Inktober”. For nearly a decade Inktober was a smash hit, with each yearly iteration highly anticipated by both artists and audience. 

One major draw of Inktober is that it encourages artists to not overthink their work – between the daily prompts and un-editable nature of ink, participants benefit from moving quickly and keeping it simple. It’s also a fun reason to experiment with a new medium.

We all know that daily practice is an effective way to grow skills, though the idea of doing something every single day can sound daunting. With Inktober, there’s a huge participating community eager to encourage and inspire each other’s work. That makes it much easier to keep momentum and motivation through the gauntlet of 31 consecutive days. 

While completing the entire month is definitely a challenge, most everyone agrees that it’s a valuable exercise and, most important, just plain fun. 

Inktober Controversy

In 2019, Parker trademarked the term Inktober and created an official site. Artists received Cease & Desist letters. Given that many of the affected artists had been using the #Inktober name since all the way back in 2009, this was an abrupt and (understandably) upsetting change, and many expressed frustration at the idea of producing the work under the Inktober name and then not being able to promote it as such. 

Shortly afterward Parker released a response on Twitter and his personal website. The general idea of his response was that he never intended to prevent artists from selling their own work. He said, “Back in 2009, I created the Inktober art challenge as a way for artists to get better at drawing, find other cool artists, [and] grow an audience for their work.”