This month, friends and I took on a challenge. It’s called Inktober.

Some dude thought it’s a good idea to create ink drawings and sketches every day for one whole month of October. Instead of the Octoberfest (the beer festival that originated in Germany), here we bravely display our brewed works, but if you want to see some kick-ass works, look up #inktober. For the first week, I suggested favorite film scenes as our theme.

Admittedly, one work per day is not easy. All of us are busy so not all could commit. But my housemate CJ makes it a point to produce something beautiful every day. He works as a mobility consultant in Makati, dreams to be a children’s book illustrator, and is looking for an artist boyfriend.

Jay Gavarra is a game designer for a Singapore based company and he’s one of the illustrators under CJ’s leadership when we were all writing for the University newspaper back in college. This guy should join Pixar or Studio Ghibli someday.  And by the way, he’s willing to illustrate your wedding invites to fund his next trip.

Connet is many things, including a filmmaker. She organized this art group in college during the year when we were not writing for the paper. She couldn’t do one entry a day, and she paints on her ink drawings, but these are fine because really there are no strict rules in this challenge.

Apo Aquino is a graphic artist/entrepreneur. You will want to have your first tattoo designed by him if you see his works. Speaking of tattoo–he suggested this theme for our second week.

Ivan Burcer is the headmaster of a language school for international and local students. His mom makes nice, inexpensive accessories for cats and dogs (I’m just advertising). He likes winning in speech contests.

Kate Evangelista is a law student and writer. You could imagine how hectic her schedule should be. Hence, we forgive her level of enthusiasm in this project. (And hey, she and Jay just got short-listed in a World Nomads contest.)

Mike, my favorite graphic artist, also struggles to meet the one drawing a day requirement, because he has a number of web projects under his belt, but he’s done a few cute sketches.

As for me, I need to go back to a document I’m working on, and try to put a drop of ink on a sheet of paper before the day ends.

Every October, artists all over the world take on the InkTober drawing challenge by doing one ink drawing a day the entire month. I created InkTober in 2009 as a challenge to improve my inking skills and develop positive drawing habits. It has since grown into a worldwide endeavor with thousands of artists taking on the challenge every year. Anyone can do InkTober, just pick up a pen and start drawing. –Jake Parker