October is here! Finally, the temperature is just cold enough where you can survive wearing a sweater all day, all the coffee shops have delicious featured drinks, costumes are being sold and made, pumpkins are being picked, and Halloween is upon us as children and adults alike prepare for the day. Overall, it’s a pretty creative time of the year.

But what goes on when none of that stuff is happening to begin with? How else are people spending this festive month with their creativity? The answer is simple and also rhymes with the month: Inktober.

Now what is Inktober? What exactly is the deal with ink in the month of October and why is it so significant? Inktober was essentially introduced online around 2009 by an artist named Jake Parker as a challenge for artists to draw one ink drawing every day in the month of October. His initial goal for this project was to practice his ink drawing skills as well as participate in positive drawing habits. This has, however, grown and spread worldwide with thousands of artists in all practices participating in this month in their own way. Despite it being fun and a nice opportunity for artists to produce and practice art, it's something really nice to look forward to as it's something that can define the month of October just beyond Halloween, scary stories, pumpkins, and candy.

Provided on the official Inktober website (and down below) is a list of prompts for each day for this years as well as deals for many ink-specific art supplies readily available for aspiring artists.

Though there is a prompt for each day, not every artist follows it accordingly and usually many of them draw based on interests or requests. Not every artist draws a picture daily too, but it is still really interesting to see the variety and the way in which a lot of people go about in participating in this month!

A perfectly good example of the kind of art that is typically produced during Inktober, especially from someone who likes to take requests from people to enable herself to interact with a large audience, is by one of my closest friends named Tiffany Tang.

Using Tumblr as a platform to share and produce art with a large varied audience, she has been able to fulfill requests (some I've requested too) and built on interests to create some pretty nice material.

Here's some of the art she's made during Inktober within the last two years!

Her Inktober drawings are good displays of the kind of art that is made during this month because it is not strictly following a prompt a day nor is every drawing in just black ink. You can get so creative in your Inktober drawings that it's really fun to explore and experiment new ideas! Inktober 2016 has already kicked off, however if you're interested in seeing more Inktober drawings made by Tiffany, you can always see the art on her Tumblr. Maybe you might even request some drawings too, who knows!

So, aspiring artists, get your ink pens, brushes, and sketchbooks ready to be filled each day of this month. Not sure what to draw? Then maybe the prompt list is perfect for you!

Be creative and draw away. I'll be looking forward to seeing everyone's art!