I made it through my second Inktober - having participated last year for the first time. If you haven't heard of it, Inktober is a daily art challenge in October started by Jake Parker, an illustrator based in Utah. He created Inktober in 2009 as he says, "as a challenge to improve my inking skills and develop positive drawing habits." Inktober has since grown into a worldwide endeavor with thousands of artists participating each year. Here is the list of drawing prompts.

I have been working hard over the last year to improve my watercolor, gouache, and even digital art skills. But, I used this last month to really work on my inking skills, cross-hatching, and using watersoluble inks. For the most part, I avoided using any colors and focused on tonal values - until the end of the month when I used a bit of watercolor on some of my ink drawings.

Here are all of my Inktober drawings for this last month.

I feel like Inktober helped me with recognizing tonal values in my subjects and I enjoyed practicing my cross-hatching and using ink washes. I can't wait until next year - but now, that Inktober is over, I will go back to working on my watercolor and gouache skills -- plus, learning to use Procreate with my new iPad Pro and Apple Pencil.

Did you participate in Inktober this year? If so, what was your experience? Did you enjoy it?