There’s no doubt that the shame of the shear amount of rarely used pens and ink that I own is a contributing factor to my first ever participation in Inktober. It’s one of those myriad art “challenges ” that breed in the dank corners of social media, however this one has become one of the better known month long events.

Simply take whatever form of ink you like, Biro, pen and ink, brush pen, whatever and draw every day for the month of October.  The rules are satisfyingly loose enough for people to pretty much do what they want, and of course, you post the results of your daily efforts on whichever of the social media platforms you favour.

There is a list of daily prompts you can follow, or you can do your own thing. I’m opting for the latter. My plan is to draw portraits of artists from old photographs.  I hope this will give me sufficient leeway to focus as much on my technique as it does on the subject matter.

Now I have a month to rectify, or at least revive some skills in that area.

To be honest, I really need to! In the run-up to the challenge, I have struggled to get a reasonable result because I largely have stopped using my fountain pens for regular art making.

I’d love to hear if any of you are doing Inktober too.