Inktober and drawing prompts alike.

It's the month of October and class is in session, what is a fun way to teach the students the curriculum while allowing them to be creative? Month long drawing prompts of course!

2019 Inktober prompts

I know when I was in high school our art classes had basic lessons we needed to learn; continuous line, value, shading, still-life, and many more. No matter the curriculum I always found myself restrained to certain guidelines that trapped my creativity in a box, for example to learn continuous line we had to draw self-portraits but there is only so much you could do with that; because of this I began not enjoying art and just making it because I had to. This made me really dislike art during that time because I felt like I couldn't express myself enough. A way that I believe can add some creativity to the classroom is Inktober and drawing prompts alike.

What is Inktober? well, thanks for asking Inktober is a month-long challenge created by artist Jake Parker who aimed to exercise his ink drawing skills and introduce himself to the habit of everyday drawing. the challenge is aimed to improve skill and encourage creativity. each day there is a prompt which is just a single word that participants will draw an ink drawing based on. This is extremely helpful for creativity because it gives the artist a base to revolve the piece around, yet it isn't to specific. For example, the prompt ghost; the artist could draw a literal ghost or you could draw something that alludes to ghost, like an Ouija board, graveyard or any other thing that you can relate to a ghost. The prompts allow the student to work each day on a fresh piece of art.

So, how do we incorporate the curriculum into Inktober? the art standard #2: Organize and artistic ideas and work the curriculum for Advanced HS Levels VA:Cr2.1.III states: Experiment, plan, and make multiple works of art and design that explore a personally meaningful theme, idea, or concept. Inktober will allow students to experiment and create a new piece of artwork each day, so then by the end of the month, they will have multiple pieces that relate to Inktober.

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2018 Drawtober prompt

Drawtober, similar to Inktober is also a monthly drawing prompt list. the differences? well unlike Inktober Drawtober has no limit to the media and materials you can use; while Inktober is based on just using pen ink, Drawtober allows digital, markers, pen, colored pencils, or anything else you can find to use. the other difference is Inktober is typically just one word and is relatively vague so the artist can do with it whatever they like, Drawtober is a bit more specific in it prompts on the other hand.

An example of how you can use these in the classroom would be: say you are teaching your students about collage art, for that week's assignment you could take a week of prompts and say "for 3 of the seven prompts you want them to collage there work in some form." This could mean they could collage the background with newspaper cutout and the draw over it to create a full piece that 1: follows a prompt 2: addresses the background and 3: demonstrates the ability to create a piece of work using collage skills.

I believe that these would be a fun experiment for students, each day it will be something new so students can get a fresh start and a new wave of creativity. If a student isn't fully satisfied with a piece or a prompt, having a new one each day doesn't allow a student to be hung up on what the don't like which can lead to a creative "slump". Furthermore, people who participate are encouraged to post online with the corresponding hashtag, doing so allows students to see other drawings and get inspired, and also allows them to put their art out there and begin building an online community and portfolio for themselves.