Ink, Intuition, and Audio: My First Inktober Drawings and Journey
- Kellie Raines
- Dec 24, 2025
- 2 min read
This October 2025, I did something new — I created my first Inktober drawings.
I participated in Inktober 2025 — 31 days of prompts, pen to paper, imagination and discipline, ink stains and discovery. I had admired other artists doing it for years, but this year, something shifted. I needed a creative challenge that felt playful and purposeful. Something structured but open. Something that felt like a conversation between where I’ve been creatively and where I’m going.
So I picked up my pens and jumped in.
I completed a drawing every day, and I’ve gathered 12 of my favorites here in this post — the ones where the prompt, the image, and my inner world aligned in that just-right way. Each drawing began with the daily word, but I layered in a personal motif: podcasting and audio storytelling.
Microphones. Headphones. Coiled cords like symbolic lifelines. Audio elements tucked into the composition, woven into shapes, emerging unexpectedly like secret messages about the creative season I’m in right now.
Because this year wasn’t just about ink. It was about voice.
It was about acknowledging how much sound, story, and spoken experience have become essential materials in my artistic life. It was about honoring the new creative worlds I’ve stepped into — podcasting, narrative audio, microphone techniques, recording sessions, editing rhythms — and letting that language filter into my visual work.
Every drawing became a little conversation between ink and airwaves.
What I Learned Along the Way with my First Inktober Drawings
Inktober taught me discipline in the gentlest way: one day, one drawing, one breath at a time. Some days came easily. Some days felt like wrestling the page. Some drawings challenged me more than others. But showing up — pen in hand, imagination awake — reminded me that creative habits aren’t about perfection. They’re about presence.
It reminded me:
Creativity can grow when given structure.
Play leads to discovery.
New art forms can spark fresh life into old ones.
The page meets you where you are — always.
And perhaps most beautifully: this wasn’t a solo experience. My drawings sparked conversations. Friends followed along. Other artists reached out. People saw themselves in the ink.
Why These 12 Drawings
The 12 pieces featured here are the ones that surprised me, delighted me, frustrated me into breakthroughs, or nudged me toward new thinking. They capture humor, shadow, curiosity, tenderness, boldness, and imagination. They hold pieces of October, yes — but they also hold pieces of me.
Inktober didn’t just make me draw. It awakened courage. It sharpened play. It strengthened creative breath.
I am grateful for the challenge, for the mess, for the ritual of ink on paper each day. And I’m grateful to share these with you.
Here’s to more pages, more experiments, more crossings of art forms, and more ways to listen — not just with the ears, but with the eyes and the heart.
Thank you for being here.
Thank you for witnessing. Onward we go.
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