Every October all creatives get ready to be in one of two camps. Those who attempt Inktober and those who don't. If you're not familiar, Inktober was started by Jake Parker, an illustrator that wanted to set up a daily art challenge for himself.

Inktober has 31 prompts for you to dive into. It has grown bigger every year and now is trademarked for better or worse.

For a couple of reasons Inktober never really stuck with me. There were many times where I started and stopped, or never even tried.

Here are my problems with Inktober

It feels not very intentional - If I am going to sit down and make 31 pieces of art I am going to make sure that I am trying to say something, do something for myself or inform someone.
It's a lot - 31 pieces of art is a lot! In order to really sit down and create that much I have to be really inspired or pulled into the work.

Don't get me wrong, we love a good illustration challenge! By ‘We’ I mean a 24-year-old creative baddie that is a slave to his Ipad Pro. For goodness sake, this is the same person talking who did a 100-day project!

So what does one do? I made my own illustration challenge! What an Aries/Aquarius move.

Thus Dias Sagradso 2021 was born

What Is it?

Días sagrados 2021 is a Dia De los Muertos Illustration Challenge. There were originally 15 prompts based on different symbols and traditions of the day of the dead

Why Create something every day?

Why Do you do this to yourself Brayan?

First and foremost I want to connect with other Latine/Latinx creators! This was truly my original motivation when it came to making this illustration challenge. I have been feeling a little isolated as both a person and an artist, this was a way to connect with more like-minded people!
I want to share my culture - Point blank there are so many amazing traditions and symbols that we even as Mexicans don’t know where they came from. For me It was a way to further my own learning and share that with the world.
I want to practice with purpose - It's one thing to practice but there's also practicing with purpose. Practicing with purpose means, finding a system to work within (Color, Style, idea)

How did you accomplish this?

All of my illustrations were made on my 2019 Apple Ipad Pro and Apple Pencil. On the procreate app. These are my favorite tools! That's the technical part.

In terms of creativity, I did some other things

Researched - I read a lot of cool articles and watched a lot of youtube videos to get into the mindset!
I solidified a palette - While I have done some other illustration challenges before this is the first time I have used a handful of colors. I stayed within this Day of the Dead vibrant greens, pinks, oranges and white. With Deep navy as the black tone.

When did you find the……. When did you make the time?

This is the real magic question. When did I make time to do this? If you know me I always talk about how the early morning is my creative time. Most of these illustrations were made between the hours of 7 am and 10 am in the morning.

Here's the thing though. I am a psychopath, So there were definitely some days where I made more than one mostly out of necessity because I had a busy week.

There were also some days where I couldn't make one until 7 pm the night of. Especially the day after my Halloween outing with a 11 am presentation the next day. Yes, life does get in the way sometimes.

While life may get in the way for me it is really important to create every day!

The Colorful takeaways