Humans are really some funny creatures. Most of us live life just holding on to something poisonous, something really bad for us but that we can’t live without, such as cigarettes, substance abuse, alcohol, and even being so addicted to your phone to the point you can’t even hold a proper conversation anymore.

Participating in this year’s #Inktober series, Nour Samra, a graphic designer, drew some really original illustrations linked to that theme using the key words provided by the competition. “To be honest, the idea hit me when I read the key words provided by #Inktober. My theme is linked to the things we can’t live without, although we know they’re not good for us”, Nour told Cairoscene.

Inktober is a yearly competition that any artist all over the world can enter, with a list of keywords that aim to inspire the illustrations. All you gotta do to showcase it to the world is to use the hashtag #inktober or #inktober2018 on Instagram.

When the key word for #Inktober was ‘poisonous’, Nour did a great job at highlighting substance abuse, and in the same time shows a kind of dark sarcasm, with a woman stuck inside a pill bottle that reads “causes addiction”. “The main thing I wanted to portray through the illustrations is sarcasm. I wanted people to look and think further when they saw the illustrations, and I purposely drew things with a very small handwriting. At the end of the day, I’m a dark sarcastic person, and this can be seen in my art”, said the Egyptian graphic designer. Another witty example is the “may cause death” warning on the bucket of KFC.

Although the #Inktober month is now done, Nour will continue to draw her sketches to have one for every keyword, and we can’t wait to see what she comes up with next.