Every October, I watch my friends take part in a drawing challenge called Inktober. While I’m no Picasso, I love to draw, sketch, or even paint (though I haven’t done that in more years than I can count). This year, I decided not to sit on the sidelines.

The base challenge is to draw every day. I started out trying for that, but soon fell behind. An accepted alternative is to draw as much as you can in October. This is my new goal. At least 4 drawings a week. I’ve made or exceeded that limit, and plan to keep it up.

To make things more complicated, I’m using this challenge to train myself on my Bamboo Slate. It’s a clipboard and pen combination that records your movements and uploads them as an electronic drawing. So far so good. I’ve learned some tricks and issues, and I’ve had fun. I even did one with my left hand. I’m ambidextrous but rarely exercise that trait.

Not saying my drawings are particularly grand, but they were fun to do, and I hope, fun to look at. (Click any image to flip through the collection in a larger size.)

If you want to know more about Inktober (out of curiosity, a desire to jump in late, or to think about for next year), here’s a word from the artist Jake Parker who created this challenge.

If you’d like to peruse drawings far more talented than mine, the Twitter feed for #Inktober2018 has an impressive collection.

So what about you? Are you participating this year? If so, feel free to link to your collected works so far in the comments. If you were looking for a creativity exercise, this is a grand one.