How to do Inktober in School

This blog post contains

1. Two ways to do Inktober in School.
2. This years prompts.
3. A free 2024 calendar page for Inktober.
4. Some great examples by artists to inspire your students.

Is it too difficult to do Inktober in school?  After all, can we really ask our students to draw every day for 31 days?  I find Inktober so appealing, that I wanted to find a way to do it with my students.  Asking for a drawing every day in October is too much. 

1. How to do Inktober in School as an Art Club

Don’t wait for October. Explain to your art clubbers what Inktober is and tell students that over the month of October you’ll be sharing their best drawings on social media with the hashtag #Inktober.  That will be a reward for good work.  Of course, be as inclusive as you can.

Give each student 31 pieces of small square drawing paper in a plastic sleeve.  Also, as it’s a club, I’m going to give them a fine liner pen.  Yes, that’s extravagant but I always feel a club should be something special.  You could alternatively ask them to use their own pen.  Basically, it’s a simple drawing club that allows students to be really creative.

I shall share the prompts below with them and explain that they will complete a drawing for each one but they don’t have to do them in order.  (I print 6 on a page and put one in each plastic sleeve with the drawing paper) I’m going to insist on black and white, insist they are ink drawings, but that’s up to you.  I will then show them the artist work at the bottom of this blog post for inspiration.

The advantage of this approach is that it is a great club that allows them to think laterally about what they draw AND it creates the most amazing display. Students can pin up their work as they create it in an ever-growing, creative, black-and-white display. They can complete drawings at home if they want to do more and as the display is collaborative, you don’t really need to monitor who completes what, just celebrate great ideas and great drawing.

Updated for Inktober 2024

2. How to do Inktober in School on a Calendar Page

Art teacher Susie Kim gives her students a calendar page, like the one below which has been completed by her senior student Danrielle Cruda.  The advantage of this is that it seems less demanding and each student only has to manage one piece of paper. If you did want to assess it, you only have to assess one piece of paper.

Click on the image below to access a free Inktober blank calendar for 2024.

Inktober Examples

This section of the post is designed to use with students. It reveals prompts from previous Inktobers and then has a space so you can scroll down and reveal what the artist did. It saves you having to make a Powerpoint!

Scroll down to see great examples!

What would you draw for the prompts ‘Overgrown’ or ‘Pattern’?

Artist Martinez Rupple responded to the prompts ‘Overgrown’ and ‘Pattern’ in these two ink artworks.  What great use of cross-hatching.

What would you draw for ‘Wildlife’?

The prompt for the image below, by illustrator Nicole, was ‘wildlife’.

What would you draw for the prompt ‘Wave’?

The prompt for the artist ‘Doodlebee’ below was ‘Wave’.

What would you draw for ‘Flight’?

The prompt for the drawing below was ‘Flight’. It’s interesting to see how different artists have interpreted different words.

What would you draw for ‘Bloom’

These beautiful ink flowers have been drawn by artist Viola Hilton.  They are a wonderful example of how intricate an ink line drawing can be.

Other Inktober ideas:

You can choose to incorporate the prompt word into your ink artwork as artist Erika Lancaster has done below.

The drawings below only took 10 minutes each and the artist, Hari Conner, drew around his phone to get the shape to draw within. Fab idea!

Thank you to the artists in this post for permission to use their images. They were happy to inspire future generations of art students.