Showing posts with label Inktober. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Inktober. Show all posts

Monday, November 2, 2020

Jacaranda Time Again...



I'm glad I got at least one little sketch of them in, as over the weekend, after a week of scorching heat, we had tumultuous storms of wind, rain and hail that stripped many of the blossoms off their stalks. Hopefully more will bud, I haven't had my fill yet of the purple glory time!


 ...and the end of Inktober. I didn't much like following the prompts, but sometimes they led to revelations and discoveries - below are some of the drawings I did enjoy: 

Thinking of/feeling the word to form the shape of the action, like Throw, top left - I think this was a stick I dipped in coffee and swirled around, then dropped ink into the wet marks and finished off with some descriptive lines. The next one, Coral, almost made itself - the natural movement of ink marks on a wet or damp surface formed coral-like textures - and a fun, quick Chef, after a carefully illustrated one was rejected.



The bottom three were more personal - Float - from a photo of my daughter, though it doesn't look like her - water and its distortions are always interesting, as are Shoes, especially well-used battered old takkies - and Hide - my little 3 year old granddaughter's idea of how to do it...(smiley face with hearts emoticon here)

I'm trying to figure out what it is I really love to do, as time runs away at an ever faster rate and I don't want to waste any doing stuff I don't love any more, so Inktober was good for that at least. Some days were diamonds, and some days were stones! 

Wednesday, October 7, 2020

Inktober 2020!

Where has this year gone?...into a blur of world-changing, life-changing upheavals and restrictions, time to paint, draw, crochet, bake, read and think, and think too much. But it's October, INKtober again. It's become a marker of time, slightly annoying (so much work!) but a serious threat of FOMO if I don't once again haul out the inks, pens and brushes and just do this thing. 


I really needed to find a way to make it enjoyable, engrossing, surprising - otherwise it's just a slog and takes up too much time. Last year I found that some tiny freestyle ink-and-coffee doodles I did, and developed into images (kind of like seeing pictures in clouds) led to unexpected happy results, far preferable to my more laboured responses to the prompts. So this year I'm doing it slightly more intentionally, thinking vaguely of what I want the blobs and splashes to form but trying not to control them too much... until sometimes I do😒

Above are the first six days, following the prompts. Left to right are Fish, Wisp, Bulk, Radio, Blade and Rodent. Some of the coffee and ink splashy beginnings below, the top two with Throw and Fancy in mind, the bottom two just random, hoping they'll become something...

 

I really love the interactions of coffee and water and ink, thinking I should just leave some of these as they are, but that seems like a cop out! 

Saturday, November 4, 2017

The End of Inktober


I'm pleased to relate that for the very first time I tackled - and finished!! - Inktober! Spurred on by the fact that I'd committed to exhibit the results along with a lot of other artists at Assemblage, otherwise I'm certain I would have given up around day 4 as usual. There is one missing, due to being knackered after a morning's intense drawing at the bookshop (see previous post), which I'll catch up with for the show. And that yoga one 'Deep' has simply disappeared so I'll have to re-do it.

I started thinking I'd follow the official prompts, but after several attempts at No.1 'Swift', decided I'd rather draw what was in front of me around my home, and did a series of my daughter's succulents which she's left for me to plant-sit. I ran out of those and reverted to the list - from no 11 'Run', with an urban sketching day at Rhodes Park (a future post) in between 'Fat' and 'Filthy'...can you spot those? You can see them on my Instagram if you'd like to have a closer look.


It was a good discipline to do... of course it develops pen, brush and ink skills - although I tried such a variety of techniques none of them really got polished. It was far more demanding than the hour or so per day I imagined I would spend on it, and distracted me from the recent and satisfyingly regular rhythm I'd got into of going into my studio and working on my very own projects and painting ideas - a lifelong goal. Sigh, my middle name is Distractability.

Things I'll do differently if I do it again:

  • Have a consistent paper, size and format, especially if going to show them afterwards. I made them look pretty neat here, but they're all different sizes, weights and textures. I was trying to use up old stocks of paper and sketchbooks (a major throw-out has to happen soon) and the ink reacts differently on each - some paper sucking up the ink washes and making messy blots around the edges.
  • Have my own restrictions and theme instead of following the prompts - although they're fun to interpret, my results were all over the place.
  • Preferably draw from life - drawing from photographs, memory or imagination feels too much like work, or a commission, which I don't enjoy, although I've loved what others have done doing that.
  • I'd do it quickly so that it doesn't take over my life - I tend to overdo what I do do and neglect everything else that needs to be done.
This method was quick and fun - allowing the ink do its own thing within the drawing. The drawing implement was a very cheap plastic dropper that came in an Artliner refill box. I filled it with diluted ink which flowed smoothly and in varying thicknesses over the surface, then added spots of ink here and there for darker tones and drew some finer lines out with a nib while it was still wet. As in this baby bird in a nest, 'Squeak'...


And the most time consuming one, 'Teeming' where I crazily chose insects to teem, although many of them were added as doodles while I waited for pots to boil and ovens to warm, so not as painful as it looks.