Autumn is here, and that means that another 'Inktober' came around. Inktober is an on line illustration challenge for the whole of October, it was started by American illustrator extraordinaire Jake Parker in 2009 on Instagram, and now has hundreds of thousands of people taking part, you can read all about it on the website here .

For the last two years I have followed the prompts that Jake Parker has put on his Instagram feed (a new one for each day in October) but there aren't really any rules, so you can just draw something each day of your choice, or add to a bigger illustration each day. I chose to create a large illustration.

This summer, my daughter and I read the most wonderful book 'The Wild Folk' . It is a magical adventure story based in the fictional land of Farallone , which follows the journey of the two heros, Tin who is from the city and Comfrey who is from the country, who journey across Farallone to find the magical Elk of milk and gold with their talking leveret companions. Their quest is to save the country and wild folk from the greed of the city dwellers , who are desperate to claim the stargold which runs in the wildfolk's veins. During their journey they meet many different characters, and have to complete seemingly impossible tasks to be able to reach their goal. If you'd like to read the book (which I highly recommend) you can find it on Usborne's website here. It is the first of the 'Stargold Chronicles' and the next one will be out in Spring 2019.

The book is written so beautifully by Sylvia Linsteadt , and full of wonderful descriptions, I would have liked to have drawn the whole story, but decided to choose a passage from the end of the book where the Elk , who is the 'Creatrix' of their world is joined by all kinds of other animals as she walks through Olima. There is so much detail and the scene is so magical, as I read it to my daughter, I could see the image clearly in my mind, and couldn't wait to draw it.

I got myself a large piece of card (A1) and started drawing on the 1st October. I looked forward to adding to my drawing every day of the month, and some days got lost in it for hours at a time. I used fine liner pens, which I learnt a lot about using as the month went on too, it's the biggest drawing I have ever done using just fine liner pens, and I learnt how to use them in a variety of ways to create soft and hard lines as well as shading. I also drew the two children from the story , Comfrey and Tin, if you know my work, you'll know that most of my paintings and drawings are of animals. It was great practise drawing the children from the story, and I'm really pleased with how they turned out, you can see for yourself in the picture.

I will be getting a short run of limited edition prints made of my illustration, so if you would like one, please email me : sarah@sarahlovellart.co.uk and I can send you details.