Inktober Review: Sketching 31 Mudras in 31 Days (1/2)

Inktober is an art challenge that takes place every year in October – 31 ink sketches, one for every day of the month. It was created by ink artist Jake Parker, who releases a list of 31 prompts for the month for artists to follow if they want to. It’s that simple. 

Every year, I do a couple of ink sketches with great intention and then give up pretty quickly in. This year, to have any chance of finishing I knew I had to prep and plan every single sketch beforehand. The biggest reason I fail with Inktober every year is because I run out of ideas a few days in and, consequently, motivation. 

Earlier this year, I remember learning that there were 30/31 (depending on who you ask) mudras, or hand gestures, in Indian Classical Dance. This is something I’ve probably known for years now – I learnt Bharatnatyam and Odissi (like most Indian girls out there) as a child for years and years and so know the mudras by rote memory. However, only this year did the significance of the number of mudras click in my head. My Inktober inspiration was forming…

The crucial prep-work was thus completed. My goal for #Intober2019 was to sketch all 30 mudras ink different inks. Earlier this year, I bought a number of ink samples to try out, and this would be the perfect occasion. Bringing together my childhood love/hate for Indian classical dance (it was very hard) with my current love/hate for Inktober (also very hard) was going to be the basis for my October.

Day 07 - Arala (meaning "bent") and Day 08 - Shukhatunda (meaning "parrot's beak")

Day 13 and Day 14 - both "Katakamukha" (the only mudra to have three different interpretations of gestures - these are two of them). 

Next – persistence over perfection. Thinking about drawing every day for an entire month sounds so fantastic! What a high! How thrilling! The reality during the month is not any of these things. Ink artist Kesh has summed it up perfectly: 

There have been days when some of my drawings have genuinely reduced me to tears (more on that next month) because they have been so rubbish. The urge to do them again has been overwhelming, but the important thing for me to remind myself was that I showed up and I did something. Nobody ever got 30 drawings in a row right (probably). I will have plenty of time to redo them after the month is up. The danger of redoing bad drawings during the month is that I would have broken my rhythm – doing two drawings in one evening would have definitely lessened the probability of doing a drawing the next day. I don’t know why, but it would have. Early on, when the excitement was high, this may not have been an issue. But 26 days in (and counting), I know for a fact that I don’t have enough enthusiasm to pull off multiple drawings a day “just because this one didn’t turn out ok”. 

Day 15 - "Suchi" (meaning needle) and day 16 - "Chandrakala" (meaning face of the moon)

Day 11 - "Kapita" (meaning elephant apple - not sure what that means either) and day 12 - the first of the "Katakamukha" gesture interpretations.

Next month, once Inktober is officially over, I will be doing two things: 

• A full wrap-up of my best and worst drawings, along with the best and worst inks that I used during the month
• Putting all 30 drawings onto a large poster and printing it on some high quality art paper to frame for when I move home next year (I already have a list of the drawings I need to rework before this happens…)

In the meantime, Happy Diwali to everyone! I hope it brings a lot of love and light to you and your loved ones. I leave you with “tripataka”, which translates to "three parts of a flag" but is used to symbolise a lamp in certain dances.  

Left - Day 01 "Pataka", Right - Day 02 - "Tripataka"

- Sanjukta Sen

You can follow the rest of my #inktober2019 journey here.