Brush with a concept

Call it drawing, doodling or just scribbling — it’s something that we all grew up doing and continue to do. So when a challenge like ‘Inktober’ comes along, the inner artist in many comes out to play.

The brainchild of Jake Parker, an illustrator and cartoonist, ‘Inktober’ has become a worldwide art challenge, wherein artists do different ink drawings every single day of October.

It doesn’t matter if you are a professional artist or not, the aim is to just draw something every day. One can either choose to draw from the topics provided online or draw something on their own. The only criteria is to use just ink.

Athmi Rai, assistant manager for a business development company, has been participating in the challenge since 2015. She says, “I look forward to ‘Inktober’ every year. With 31 topics for each day, there are 31 opportunities to tell a story. I usually draw problems or issues that we face in our daily lives and get people to think about it.”

Last year, Athmi and her aunt, Jayshree Alva, posted artworks with their own interpretation of the day’s topic. “If we were a bit late in posting our works, we used to receive messages from concerned followers asking whether we had forgotten about the day’s sketch,” she adds. Finding time to create something every day is quite challenging with one’s work schedule. Rohan Dahotre, a graphic designer, says, “I haven’t been able to draw every day because of work commitments. I’ve already missed a couple of days but I’ve been following a theme for the month.”

Rohan is working on an animal series this ‘Inktober’ to show how nature is an important aspect for animals and how we are taking it away from them. He explains, “If you look at the images carefully, you will see leaves and flowers in them. I hope people will see this project and understand the plight of endangered animals.”

Communication professional Sneha Paul says, “This is a great initiative for artists who prefer the traditional ink to bring their ideas to life. Digital art is taking over but traditional ink shouldn’t die in the process. ‘Inktober’ definitely feels like a detox for the digital world.”

Well, back to the drawing board then!