What is Inktober?
Inktober is a month-long art challenge created by artist Jake Parker that is focused on improving skill and developing positive drawing habits. For this reason, Inktober is not a competition but an open event that is aimed at anyone having the desire to draw, regardless of the skill level. Every day during October anyone participating creates an ink drawing and posts it online (see https://inktober.com/faq).
To inspire the illustration of the day, Inktober publishes every year a list of 31 words, one for each day of the month (the prompt list). You can check the prompt lists from past years to have an idea. Following the prompt list and seeing what others are creating, allows one to notice how much variety and creativity there is within a single word.
The original initiative is not restricted to any platform, although illustrations are usually shared across Instagram, along with the tags #inktober #inktober[year].
What do you mean by “with a scientific twist”?
Look at the device you are reading this on, the air you breathe, the plants you have at home… your own brain! Subjects and effects of science are present everywhere, even if we are not always aware of it.
SRUK/CERU, as a scientific organization, aims to raise awareness of the value of science in our lives. We will be using the official prompt list to convey ideas related to science. By doing so, we emphasize that science is in the extraordinary and in the common… you just have to make the twist!
If you are a researcher, you may choose a prompt related to your field of expertise (all fields welcome!) to illustrate what you do, or a fun fact related to your research. You can also use the initiative to raise awareness or to explain some general science facts or curiosities. In any case, our best recommendation is that you let your curiosity flourish and your creativity ignite. For inspiration, see some examples below from our first challenge.
What do you mean by “collaborative”?
We will be working as a team to complete the 31 day challenge together. We will be using our Instagram account @srukceru to publish the illustrations for each day. See below how you can participate.
How can I participate?
To participate in the challenge with your illustrations, follow the steps:
- Sign up to the challenge.
- Draw your illustrations.
- Digitize your illustrations
- Send us your illustrations.
1. Sign up to the challenge.
- Send us an email to [email protected] before the 23rd of September showing interest. We will acknowledge your message and send you a link to an online form where you can select your prompts*. It will work on a first come, first served basis.
- Once you select the prompts, we will send you a confirmation email and then you can start drawing.
* You can participate with as little as one illustration. Although there is no upper limit, we recommend to evaluate how much time you can commit to the initiative, as the elaboration of the illustration, taking and sending the photo can take several hours.
2. Draw your illustrations.
- As a guideline, we will be following the recommendations from the official Inktober initiative. In short, Inktober’s spirit is to use any kind of ink on paper (ballpoint pens are also allowed), so we encourage volunteers to try real ink paintings and experiment. It is part of the challenge’s fun to work with these constraints. However, we will accept your illustration in any media you feel comfortable working with, including digital.
- The canvas must be square (aspect ratio 1:1), so that your illustration looks best on Instagram.
- You can add your signature if you want, as long as it is not a prominent part of the drawing.
3. Digitize your illustrations
- To digitize your illustration, you can take a picture of it or scan it. Where scanning it at a high resolution will produce the best results, you can also use your phone camera. However, you should take into account the following recommendations:
- Take the picture under natural light when possible.
- Try to keep it flat and the camera parallel to it. Beware the shadows!
- Photograph a broader area, so that you can adjust and crop the image afterward.
- Regardless you used a scanner or a camera, you can often enhance the quality of your photo by editing the lighting and contrast.
- If you produced your illustration digitally, just save it as a JPG or PNG at a resolution no lower than 150 ppi.
4. Send us your illustrations (this has changed since first year’s challenge)
Upload your illustrations to your assigned folder in our Google Drive (we will send you a link to it in advance) at least two days before it is due.
- Rename the image with the illustrations’ day and word (example: 18_moon.jpg).
- Fill in the document in your folder with:
- One or two sentences related to your illustration.
- The tags of your choice.
- Your social media accounts if you want to see them associated with the publication.
We will publish your illustration on our Instagram account the day it is due. Additionally, once a week, we will publish a summary of the challenge on Twitter and Facebook with all the illustrations of the week
What will you use my illustrations for? Copyright and reproduction.
By participating you give us permission to publish your illustrations on our social media accounts and other communications from our Society related to this initiative, always crediting the author.
Participants must warrant that the drawing/s they are submitting is their original work and that they own the copyright for it.
Data Protection
Your personal data (name, email, social media alias and any other personal information requested) will be only used for communication purposes related to this initiative. You can ask us ([email protected]) to stop contacting you and remove you from our databases at any time.
I intend to participate in Inktober on my own. Is there a way I can adhere to the initiative?
If you are participating in the challenge on your own, you are posting your illustrations on Instagram, and you want to support our outreach initiative, you can do so by:
- Using our challenge tags #SRUKxInktober #SRUKxInktober2023 in your Inktober illustrations “with a scientific twist”, and tagging us.
- Resharing our publications. Tap the little aeroplane icon to repost them to your stories. Don’t forget to credit the authors.
I still have some questions…
If there is any question not solved here, you can write to us to [email protected].
