Most people don’t fail Inktober. They just run out of steam somewhere around day 12 and quietly stop posting. This year I’m walking through the exact prep work I do before I ever pick up a pen, the stuff that’s the actual difference between finishing and ghosting your own sketchbook.

Blog Version

Inktober is about to start, and this year I’m walking you through what I’m doing to prepare myself to actually be successful with it.

What Is Inktober?

If you’re unfamiliar with Inktober, it’s an annual art challenge started by a guy named Jake Parker, who has done some amazing pieces of art over the years. The basic idea is that every day in October, using a different prompt, you draw a picture using only ink. It’s expanded since then. People have done all kinds of things with it. I did digital art last year, and I’ve seen people use colored pencils and all sorts of other mediums. The idea is to get creative, to sit down and do some work, to be creative for a season.

For me as a creative person who also gets paid for his creativity, it’s a way to rejuvenate. When you’re so concerned about making sure everything you create is perfect for your client, for the people you’re doing the work for, you get this drain on your creative battery. Doing art challenges like this, where it’s just for me, helps recharge that. And every year I try to do something a little different, just to stretch myself.

Over the years, I’ve tried doing Inktober more than once, and I know a lot of people who sit down and start it and then get to a point where they just give up. Not that they failed, exactly. They just ran out of steam. This year I want to be successful at getting all the way through the month, doing something that’s meant to help me grow.

Here’s how I’m preparing.

Tip 1: Pick Your Medium

The first thing is simplifying the process by picking your medium, deciding what it is you’re going to be drawing on. Maybe that’s a nice fancy sketchbook. I’ve seen people use sticky notes, which I think is really cool. Pick your medium and set it aside.

Putting something to the side specifically does something in your brain. It helps you go, “This is for a specific project I’m going to complete.” It helps you segment that part of your life. Then there’s selecting what you’re actually going to create with. Do you have a set of pens you want to use? A set of markers? You don’t have to use pens. You can do pencils, colored pencils, whatever you want. The idea is for you to be creative. For me, I’m choosing pens this year. A couple of years ago I used alcohol markers. Last year I did digital art which was fun and taught me a lot. This year I’m using pens because they’re more permanent. So if I make a mistake, I need to learn to work through it.

Tip 2: Build a Color Story

The Second tip is setting up rules. For me, it’s building a color story. This challenge came to me because of one of my students. She has this notebook, and she picked it up and said, “You know what, I’m just going to use nothing but red tones. She has two red colored pencils, a red pen, and a black pen. That’s all she’s using. And it’s phenomenal art. I was super impressed, and it challenged me.

I want to do something similar, kind of a pseudo-monochrome thing. So I’m going to do one color set: one main color, plus a color pop that contrasts with it. That leaves the question of which colors I’m going to choose from my pens, and what the complementary color will be.

This is where a tool like Canva’s color wheel helps. It shows you complementary, monochromatic, analogous (three colors close together), and triadic (three colors spread evenly). What I’m going for is complementary: one primary color and a second color that pops against it.

Tip 3: Test Your Tools Before You Commit

Again, this is about being successful, and that means knowing what your tools actually do. So you test them.

What I loved about the pen set I bought is that it came with a tester card, so I could test everything before committing. You test your colors so you get a feel for how they’re actually going to fill the page. The idea is to prepare ahead of time so you’re not caught off guard, because I can walk in thinking I’m going to use certain colors, and then find out they don’t fit the vibe, or they seem off. When you’re not happy with the result, you basically have two options: give up, which I’ve unfortunately done many times, or push through and adjust but never really be happy with it. I’m trying to set myself up for the biggest win instead.

Tip 4: Test on Your Actual Paper

How your tools work with the material you’re actually using is another key thing to think through. Every material is different. If you’re using paper meant for watercolors, that’s a different texture, and certain markers will bleed straight through it.

So I tested on the same paper that’s in my actual Inktober notebook. I filled in a small box to see how it played out, and it looked good, more vibrant than I expected. Then I tested how it bled through, because this paper is thin and my plan is to draw on both sides. Sure enough, there was some bleed-through. I also found out the ink doesn’t dry very quickly. You have to let it dry, or it smears.

This is all part of the preparation process. You’re learning how things function together and how they fall apart. If I don’t figure this out now, then down the road I’m working on a piece, I spend real time on something I like, close the notebook and put it in my back pocket like it’s designed for, and open it up later to find the piece ruined. Or I step away partway through something, planning to finish it later, and everything’s smeared when I come back. Because I’m doing the intentional work today to see how things behave, I can plan ahead and figure out what will actually work for me.

Why Preparation Matters

Preparation is key to succeeding at anything. There’s an old proverb that hits the nail on the head with this idea:

Proverbs 21:5: “The plans of the diligent lead surely to abundance, but everyone who is hasty comes only to poverty.”

This plays out in many areas of life. If you want to be successful at something, if you want abundance in whatever it is, maybe it’s art, maybe it’s relationships, maybe it’s a job, you need to be willing to plan diligently. You need to take the time to stop and think through what you’re doing. If you don’t, you just kind of jump into things. Sometimes that’s the season you’re in, and you have to do that, but things don’t always work out right when you do. You might fumble your way through, but you’ll run into issues.

So plan diligently. Put in the effort to figure out what resources you’re going to use and how they work together before you venture off.

But here’s the other side of it: you can plan all day long, and at some point you still have to put your hand to it. You still have to get out there and do it. Don’t get stuck in the planning process. There comes a moment where you step out and do whatever it is you feel called to do. It won’t always be smooth, even with all the planning. I could test every pen I own and six different kinds of paper, but if I never actually step out and do it, I’ll never get any of the benefit.