All Sorts of Art by Ali: challenge

Sunday, October 12, 2025

Inktober 2024, Part Two

With Inktober 2025 merrily chugging along, I am following up my last post to show you more of what I did for Inktober 2024 (I mean, it's hard to do a retrospective of current events, right?) Without further ado, here is more art from exactly (or so) a year ago:

Inktober 2024, Day Four, "exotic" - this one is a bit more detailed, so it's where I bogged down slightly; I think I posted my pencil sketch on the correct day, but I posted the finished inks a few days later.

Inktober 2024, Day Five, "binoculars" - this was a pretty simple design that I thought came out very well. Another favorite. I just like the vibe!

Something I didn't mention before, but you may have noticed when you saw the prompt list in my previous post, is that the 2024 prompt list was mostly made of obviously related words, as though someone lazily opened a book on travel for, uh, "inspiration" when deciding on the prompts. I mean, 30 of the 31 prompts are obviously travel-related, and I'm sure you could fit "violin" in there with not much extra effort. I'd contemplated making an actual story out of these...but then I thought I should probably leave that to people who can finish things.

So anyway, Inktober 2024, Day Six, "trek", is my attempt to derail the narrative, because art lets you do that. My portrait of Counselor Deanna Troi came out very nicely, I think. Of course I posted it late, but these things can't be rushed. One thing I have a slight issue with is that her hair looks oddly two-toned due to my using a Sharpie to fill in the bulk of the dark area rather than drain my beloved Micron pen with non-precision work. Sacrifices must be mad for great art, so this is not great art. Hee! Oh, and since I was late getting this done, I sneakily threw in Day Seven, "passport", tucked into her hand. I'm a rascal!

Inktober 2024, Day Eight, "hike", and Day Nine, "sun" - at this point, I decided to fling myself into combined prompts. I also got a little experimental with decorative patterns, turning out this semi-psychedelic drawing on a piece of bright-pink cardstock rather than in my dedicated Inktober sketch book. I subsequently placed it, and another doodle, in the local FLAG (free little art gallery) for anyone to take and enjoy.

And that, my friends, is my output for Inktober 2024, both in drawings and blog posts. I have produced artwork for Inktober 2025, so I'll be covering that at some point.

For my previous Inktober posts:

https://allsortsartbyali.blogspot.com/2019/12/a-little-backstory-on-inktober.html

https://allsortsartbyali.blogspot.com/2020/10/inktober-2020-is-under-way.html

https://allsortsartbyali.blogspot.com/2020/11/more-fun-with-inktober.html

https://allsortsartbyali.blogspot.com/2021/03/another-shot-of-inktober-so-what-if-its.html

https://allsortsartbyali.blogspot.com/2022/04/inktober-restrospective-2020-part-two.html

https://allsortsartbyali.blogspot.com/2022/08/inktober-2021-starting-off-with-bang.html

https://allsortsartbyali.blogspot.com/2022/09/inktober-2021-did-i-start-unraveling.html

https://allsortsartbyali.blogspot.com/2024/10/inktober-2024-prompt-list-and-some.html

https://allsortsartbyali.blogspot.com/2025/10/inktober-2025-is-under-wayand-i.html

For more shenanigans, you can follow me on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/allsortsofart

Wednesday, October 9, 2024

Inktober 2024 Prompt List and Some Updates

I haven't written about Inktober in a while, and it's under way again, so first things first: There is the prompt list, above. Yes, I know they release it in September, and I know it's already the second week of Inktober, but...you know how I am. By the way, if you follow my Facebook page ( https://www.facebook.com/allsortsofart ), you will note that I shared the prompt list when it was released, so this is just kind of, let's say, reinforcement.

The last time I blogged about Inktober was in 2022, when I was writing about Inktober 2021 (again, completely on brand), right here https://allsortsartbyali.blogspot.com/2022/09/inktober-2021-thrilling-conclusion-kind.html . I'd actually had a cracking good year, producing well more of the prompts than usual, owing a lot to the fact that I ended up doing a few drawings later in the month that combined three prompts each.

Inktober 2021, Day 9, “Pressure” - I mentioned this one at the end of the last Inktober article as having been pencilled (believe it or not, prior to the start of Inktober that year) but not inked. Happily, I did manage to finish the inks on it – this year!!!

I wasn't very gung-ho about Inktober 2022 (still tired from the prior year? Anybody's guess), but I did produce work for the first two prompts, “Gargoyle” and “Scurry”, but, uh...not in that order. Really very much not. Not even in the same year, actually. I produced “Scurry”, a cute sketch of a stressed-out businessrodent, running (literally) late for an important meeting. Scurry, cute lil dude! You'll make it!

The Day 1 prompt, “Gargoyle”, was a classic example of my shooting myself in the foot by deciding that I was going to do a portrait (nooooo!) of one of Notre Dame's famous beasties, from photo reference. This is as far as I got that year:

Decent start, but whew, look – I shouldn't try that nonsense on Day 1. So when did I finish? I'll get back to that.

That was it for 2022, but I managed to do even less for 2023. This time I changed things up by mostly ignoring that it was happening at all, until I happened to notice that the Day 19 prompt was “Plump”, and I got inspired to scribble this cute gal:

And that was all of Inktober 2023 for me. I mean, so far, at least. I do have the idea that someday, I will actually go back and complete every single one of the prompts I missed. I mean, I have many months during which it is not actually Inktober, for corn's sake. At least I scored one, which is one more than the Australian women's Olympic breakdancer scored. I didn't even have to fly to Paris on anyone's dime.

Oh yeah – here's my drawing for “Gargoyle”, which I finished THIS YEAR. And upon posting it, I found out it's not even a gargoyle, dang it. It's a grotesque (they're to scare demons away – the gargoyles are downspouts, to drain the water away). So anyway, tune in next time or sometime to find out how I'm doing with this year's prompts. Spoiler: I am participating again, so there's that.