This is the accumulation of all Inktober 2019, 31 pen and ink illustrations, from 17 counties in Ireland, all under the combined theme of My Ireland. There is a total of 32 counties in Ireland, with 6 being in Northern Ireland and 28 in the Republic. Jake Parker came up with the concept of Inktober to spur his creativity and practice his skills. He created a prompt list and did an ink drawing every day. I used the prompts from Jake Parkers Inktober 2019 list as inspiration, sticking as close as I could to the spirit of them. All the locations had to be places I had been to, using photos I had taken myself. That was it. To make things more manageable, I decided to do a combined piece and stick to one strong theme.
If you look closely I added a few more spots not related to the prompts. There is the dry stacked walls of Inishmaan, a thatched roof cottage from Kerry, a bee hive hut from Skellig Michael, Mount Lannister, and Benbulben Table Mountain in Sligo.
I used a .005 micron pen for 90 percent of the challenge, till it died on me. Then I switched to a .05 Staedtler Pigment Liner Pen. The paper was a sheet of A3 card stock medium grit.
Thanks to all who followed me on this journey, I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did. I also hope you learned a little more about the fascinating and long history of Ireland through it. I am learning more every day, and this barely scratched the surface.
There are links to all the individual pieces underneath, as well as what county they were in. I tried to provide links to most of the sites so that you could get a more in-depth history of each location.
For anyone interested in buying any of my pieces or setting up a commission you can contact me through my website. I have a solo art show called An Illustrated Journey Through Ireland hanging at the Gold Standard Cafe in Philadelphia. All the available pieces are on my website.
To check out more of my art and portfolio go to MichaelBencik.com
Go raibh maith agat!
Inktober Prompt List by Jake Parker
Cahergal Fort, County Kerry
County Carlow
County Carlow
County Carlow
County Kilkenny
County Tipperary
County Wexford
County Carlow
County Kilkenny
County kildare
County Wicklow
County Dublin
County Carlow
County Carlow
County Antrim
County Clare
County Wexford
County Sligo
County Antrim
County Carlow
County Wicklow
County Wexford
County Meath
County Cork
County Carlow
County Carlow
County Limerick
County Carlow
County Westmeath
County Wexford
Inktober Day 31 – Ripe, Happy Halloween!
County Tipperary
michaelbencik.org 
These are all beautiful x
Thanks so much and thanks for checking out my art.
You are most welcome
Very interesting. I am petrified of collecting mushrooms ever since I was small picking strawberries and a farmer told me about his daughter and son in law, who pick wild mushrooms for a living, got a bad one. He died and she was paralyzed. So scary it still sticks with me 35 years later. So I leave it to the experts.
Very cool though. Snow is something I miss enormously. Irish rain just does not cut it.
I will only chose these three types as they are unmistakable. I’d be scared too ick anything else. I agree I’d have to take an expert.
Thanks for sharing!
Thanks so much for following along. Now it’s time to get bs k to real work, lol. You might enjoy some books I worked on a few years back. http://www.michaelbencik.com/oej_egypt
That’s a terrific body of work
Thanks. In hind site I wish I would have done all 32 counties, instead of half. But when I started I did not even know there were 32.
Wow, these are amazing, you make me want to visit these places ☺️☺️☺️
Well they are all pretty cool places to visit, even the playgrounds. 🙂 Ireland is so filled with amazing places, I can’t wait to discover more. Thanks so much for stopping by and checking it out.
Beautiful collection!
So I checked you out because you followed our blog. Man your inktober is so awesome. I hope you frame it nicely and hang it up!
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