Is anyone doing inktober this year or is it too controversial/commercial now?
Sent from my SM-N960F using Tapatalk
Is anyone doing inktober this year or is it too controversial/commercial now?
Sent from my SM-N960F using Tapatalk
I'm ready for it.
I have not followed what's going on with it since last year, so I don't know if it has become commercial / controversial.
I'll just do it exactly like last year, I see a topic that I can sketch, I'll do it, if not or if I don't like the word, skip.
Easy and relaxing that way![]()
suzy01 (September 9th, 2020)
IS there a link to this "Inktober"?
https://inktober.com/
Sent from my SM-N960F using Tapatalk
Detman101 (September 10th, 2020)
Ouch. I remember when it was just a thing. All corporate now, which just kills the fun for me.
"When Men differ in Opinion, both Sides ought equally to have the Advantage of being heard by the Publick;
and that when Truth and Error have fair Play, the former is always an overmatch for the latter."
~ Benjamin Franklin
Well for basically ten years it was a group thing, more of a movement really, but then the guy who came up with the idea suddenly trademarked the name and started doing brand deals etc. Fair enough, but I think a few independent artists got burned with take down notices, there was a bit of controversy. It went from beea fun community and self improvement exercise to basically free advertising for Jake Parkers new inktober 'brand'. However, recently there's been even more drama because his impending book (about inktober) has been pulled at the last minute to investigate plagiarism claims from another well-known artist Alphonso Dunn (his book is excellent btw) so we may or may not ever see Jakes new book.
I don't know, the whole thing has left a bad taste for me. I love doing the same prompts as everyone else because it's fun to see the interpretations, on the other hand do I want to give free advertising to a brand associated with stealing another artists work? Redd.it/YouTube/twitter as you can imagine have gone nuts with this. I'll definitely be drawing portraits in ink all October but should I follow the prompts or even tag inktober, that I'm not sure of yet.
Sent from my SM-N960F using Tapatalk
bebox (September 10th, 2020), grainweevil (September 10th, 2020), Jon Szanto (September 9th, 2020)
Jon Szanto (September 9th, 2020)
Yeah maybe it's time to do our own thing. Penvember, anyone?
azkid (September 9th, 2020)
suzy01 (September 10th, 2020)
Thanks for the summary of the situation for people who don't keep up with the news such as myself.
Wow, that's just a sad affair overall, there are several ways that could have been handled that will result in more favorable outcome, I'm sure.
Doing prompts is a very common method for encouraging creative interpretations, I'm sure we can come up with our own (like azkid said).
suzy01 (September 10th, 2020)
I have pencils, pens, inks and drawing paper available to use so may as well use them. I'm not going to get stressed by trying to think of something to draw for some of the daily prompts this year but will do what I can.Also, I don't tend to call any of my images #Inktober.
I have a copy of the official Inktober 2020 prompt list if you want it. Saves someone the effort of thinking of 31 different prompts.
Last edited by Chrissy; October 30th, 2022 at 02:27 AM.
Regards, Chrissy| My Review Blog: inkyfountainpens
Having read Suzy's helpful summary of what happened, I have unilaterally renamed it Stinktober.![]()
In the words of Paul Simon, you can call me Al.
I will participate in Inktober as the last years, and I will try to do the whole 31 again.
My sun will from today’s perspective participate at least partitially.
We saw in the last years (especially the last year) that it was really really hard to keep up and stay motivated beside school and other activities.
I want him to have fun with it and not transform it to a burden, so he will participate in those prompts/days when he is motivated to do so and skip the rest.
Regarding the other stuff
I don’t like and also not care about the commercialization that happens, I just ignore it.
Jake Parker came up with the idea of Inktober, but imho he is not „Inktober“ or the art spirit of it.
Imho he does not own the spirit of it, he might trademarked the term Inktober and related stuff and commercialize it, but as said, I don’t care.
I‘m interested in the art event and being creative together with many other artists in the world.
I know the videos of Alonso Dunn and I think he is a great artist, I considered buying his book several times in the past, almost pulled the trigger several times.
I also watched the video where he compared the similarities of his and Parker’s book.
But to be honest for me the critique about plagiarism is not that obvious.
These are books about basic drawing techniques, and of course the same basic things will show up in many of these books in a similar way.
Also Dunn did not invented pen drawing and light and shadow, different stroke techniques, shading, texturing,.....
And he was for sure not the first one who used boxes and spheres and eyes with arrows to illustrate it.
And of course listing up drawing pens will result in a very similar list including similar drawings of these pens.
Some times in his video I got the impression that Dunn thinks he has patented all the basics regarding drawing and nobody else is allowed to illustrate common basic techniques.
So at least I will not judge if the new book is too similar in certain aspects to the old one, yes I see similarities in some cases, and yes Parker might be inspired by Dunn’s book, but we are talking about basic drawing techniques and Dunn has for sure not the only right to use shading, light and shadow, gradients, boxes and circles.
If Dunn is confident enough to start a lawsuit, so be it.
It will not affect my attitude of the Inktober art event.
I agree with Ptero that no one can trademark the concept (let alone the spirit) of using prompts to spur creativity. This has been done in a million different ways over the course of time since people can communicate with each other.
Here, 30 prompts straight from a random word generator that I found in 10 seconds of searching online (9 seconds was spent typing the search query).
account
beam
recycle
love
division
roar
definite
rung
fastidious
scenario
cold
debate
tournament
improvement
relaxation
dividend
curiousity
clay
parade
strength
econobox
supplementary
childlike
talk
index
site
bargain
text
corner
angle
Let´s get it started.
My son and I are using this year Hahnemühle Toned Grey Watercolour sketchbooks with 200 gsm.
Last year we used Hahnemühle Cappuccino sketchbooks with 120 gsm, the paper held up well, but when it got really really wet it came to its limit (but for a 120 gsm paper extraordinary good).
So we decided to try the new Watercolour sketchbooks this year and I can already tell you, they are awesome.
Prompt: Fish
#inktober2020-01 Fish (Junior) by Ptero-Pterodactylus by Ptero Pterodactylus on DeviantArt
(Tombow WS-BH,Rohrer & Klingner Helianthus, Rohrer & Klingner Blu Mare, Diamine Poppy Red, P.W. Akkerman Oranje Boven, Schmincke Calligraphy Guache White)
This year I will limit myself to a small amount of colors, mainly one primary color + white (plus something else if needed).
#inktober2020-01 Fish by Ptero-Pterodactylus by Ptero Pterodactylus on DeviantArt
(Pelikan 400NN - F ...... Diamine Sargasso Sea, Schmincke Calligraphy Guache White)
They do a cappuccino toned watercolour one too but I prefer the grey
Here's mine, it's Michael Fish the infamous weatherman
Sent from my SM-N960F using Tapatalk
That got me curious enough to google Michael Fish and find what his claim to infamy was.
![]()
"If a thing is worth doing, it is worth doing badly."
G.K. Chesterton
suzy01 (October 1st, 2020)
Huh, I missed the controversy but am intending to go ahead with the prompt list anyway.
Inktober 2020 #1 Fish
Inktober_2020_1_Fish.jpg
Noodler's Lexington Grey for sketch and a little water, Robert Oster Purple Rock, Diamine Alexandrite, some Parker Quink Black for the background.
azkid (October 3rd, 2020), junglejim (October 2nd, 2020), Mags (October 2nd, 2020), Pterodactylus (October 1st, 2020), usk15 (October 13th, 2020)
Bookmarks