I FAILED a Painting Challenge

Like many of my artist friends, I was so excited about Inktober!

Inktober is a month long social art challenge asking artists to create art featuring ink every day in October. 31 days, 31 works of ink inspired art! Sounds Great Right?

I jumped on board and announced my participation at the end of September.  I was excited to make some new work, experiment with ink and watercolour and challenge myself like I did in July for World Watercolour Month. I promised myself I would buy myself a fancy fountain pen if I completed Inktober!

Except around day 8…I burned out and stopped painting.

I missed one day, and then another….and other than a few random sketches, I dropped right out of the challenge.

I feel a bit guilty and ashamed of not being able to spend a few minutes a day creating a new piece of art for the challenge. It is, what I do for a living after all?

It wasn’t like I stopped creating altogether. Keeping creativity in my daily life is important to me. I created in classes, doing demos and even completed a few commissioned works. None of this really “counted” for Inktober and I never did the experimental ink pieces I wanted to. I barely got out urban sketching!

But let me say it loud for everyone: IT'S OKAY TO DROP OUT OF A PAINT CHALLENGE.

We put so much pressure on ourselves and life (especially these days) can get a bit hectic. I’m the queen of over committing and saying “YES” even when I should say no.

Inktober was a good reminder of that. A good reminder to listen to my body and do what’s best for me. Ignore pressure to do it all! 

To all my Art colleagues who completed the challenge. AMAZING! That was an accomplishment and I loved seeing your work every day and watching you cross that finish line with your last ink drawing on October 31st.

To those of us that didn’t make it - That’s  alright too. There's always another way to challenge ourselves and push ourselves creatively, when the time is right!  Just keep creating!  Even if it's not every single day.

Also, I bought myself the fancy fountain pen anyways. . .

Stay Creative!