Inktober 2019 - THE LAST

October is over as is Inktober! I'm proud of myself because I did it! I stuck to 1 drawing a day, I completed them every day (no fudging/no all nighters!) I used the official prompts! I followed the tiny list of rules and got way more comfortable with drawing with pen and commiting to those lines (with the help of some presketching!) I got experience with using India Ink and I really enjoyed it! I have some drawings that I look at and I'm surprised I did them! I've learned a lot!

But I am pretty proud. I've done 29 faces quite a few times at this point where you make 29 faces in a month (I haven't even shared my last completion where I painted faces on 29 rocks!), but I never accomplished it via 1/face a day (I've also started it a few times and didn't get to 29....)

I wanted to only use supplies I had on hand, so I went with a little Canson Mix Media book I won at Blick Art Materials years ago. The paper didn't like the watered down inks as much as would be ideal, but it was ok. The form factor of the book was great as it was easy to carry around and the pages weren't so huge (3.5x5.5 inches) that a drawing a day sucked up all the time in the day. I could easily sketch while I sat at my table with things playing on youtube in the background and carry everything I needed to other locations (this is something I've grown to love about watercolors as well.)

I've had a little bit of art drawing lessons in my life, but not much - a 2 week summer program in the afternoons one summer and some drawing in my photography class in high school (so the class could qualify as an "art" class as per some organization.) I've stumbled into some youtubers that draw and it's made me want to integrate watercolors more with drawing vs. all the abstract stuff I do or to add more structure to the abstract. While I do enjoy the "play" aspect of paints and mixing colors or the relaxation of just doodling at times, it is nice to be able to convey something more concrete. This past summer while at Yosemite, I spent time doing pen drawings of random nature I found as I sat next to a stream and enjoyed it immensely. So I set out to only use black ink to draw for a month and draw more realistic stuff.

It was incredibly hard for me NOT to use color this month. That's first where adding in the black India ink became extremely appealing. For all the years I've been developing my black and white film, I don't draw things in just black and white normally. I loved the inks, but about halfway through Inktober, I pulled out my colored Microns for "overgrown" on day 14, using a limited palette, and then decided I should just stick the black and white. The thinking and way I was building the drawings was much different without the focus on color and I knew I was doing this partially to challenge myself to draw and art differently and pratice. But I also really wanted color. So I decided to let myself buy a set of the color India Inks if I completed the month! 

Some days were more difficult than others. I just didn't feel like drawing some days and others I really didn't feel inspired by the prompt. Some days I started drawing and erased the whole thing a few times. Some days I messed up lines and fixed them and others I just had to live with it. Some drawings I keep going back to look at and others makes me want to redraw them, but also not really, so I try to learn from it and move on.

I am glad I did it, but I am glad it's over! I still want to keep drawing and I still need to keep doing daily art! Yay for Inktober!

#31 - Ripe. COLOR!!!

Inktober 2019 Days 1-15

Inktober 2019 Days 16-30

#Inktober #Inktobeer2019

Inktober 2019 - Day 16-30

One more drawing of Inktober left! I usually draw in the evenings, so I want to wrap things up later today with my last drawing and share some thoughts and reflections on this month, but in case I don't get to it tonight, here's the past 2 weeks of Inktober! (Days 1-15 here)

#16 - Wild. I researched animals that can only live in the wild & decided to go with a whale! I enjoyed drawing this guy!

#17 - Ornament. Many table ornaments! What are they? Ornaments! 

#18 - Misfit. Misfit was not inspiring at all to me & I struggled with it. Halloween was a backup and I ended up here. I enjoyed painting branches.

#19 - Sling. The alpaca fur was tiring (it's made of tiny swirls), but the effect was totally worthwhile!

#20 - Tread

#21 - Treasure. I was definitely thinking of 2 little pirates I get to visit with & who've asked me to draw countless pirate ships! I enjoyed drawing a different part of the pirate story & kinda love this!

#22 - ghost

#23 - Ancient

#24 - Dizzy

#25 - Tasty . This one leaves me so.........

I just wanted to draw fruit and was desperately missing color & so I added the cake, but it still feels so unfinished. I'm tempted to finish it 

#26 - Dark.

#27 - Coat

#28 - Ride

#29 - Injured. I really didn't like this prompt and wanted to explore tree injury and animals that injure trees. That's when I learned about sapsuckers (related to woodpeckers, but woodpeckers usually go for insects). They do technically hurt the trees, but since the tasty sap trees are usually healthy, they can generally recover from the rows of tiny holes the birds leave behind.

#30 - Catch. I kinda already did one like this on day 3 for bait, but decided it was a good chance to see how I've improved by drawing another cat. I'm super proud of this & it's probably my favorite cat that I've drawn, ever!

#inktober #inktober2019

Inktober 2019, 2 Weeks

I decided I wanted to do more daily art conveniently around the time that Inktober fell this year, so I decided to give it a try. It is October 15th and I've done 15 drawings, one per a day! I don't usually draw more realistic stuff with only lines, so it's been a nice practice in that way as well as making time every day. It's been a while since I did more daily art.

Drawing with pen is somewhat nerve wracking at times - you can easily mess up a line and then it looks....weird. But that's part of the process! There are things in almost every drawing that I'd do differently if I did it again, but that's not really the point! It's a good chance to learn and try out something and make a habit. I'm enjoying using supplies I've had on hand (with the exception of finally letting myself buy a bottle of black ink) and using them in different ways. My supply list has been minimal with a little notebook of Mix Media paper I got for free at Blick art materials, a mechanical pencil, eraser, rules and random pens, mostly Pigma Microns.

I'm following the relatively minimal number of rules (pencil drawing + ink. I've been sharing them with my boyfriend and randomly on Instagram) and the list of official prompts. Some days the prompts are more inspiring than others (for #13 "ash" I decided having a campfire in the drawing was about as much as I cared), but that's also part of the challenge. I'm hoping to finish the month, but if I don't, that's ok too. I'm hoping to get back into work on other things.

#1 - Ring (Ring Tailed Lemur inspired by recent Zoboomafoo viewing)

#2 - Mindless

#3 - Bait; This is when I decided I really wanted to try out the ink....

#4 - Freeze

#5 - Build

#6 - Husky. I didn't want to draw a dog. I learned that a large paintbrush makes a huge difference in not getting streaks with the ink.

#7 - Enchanted. I really wanted to draw a small cute animal

#8 - Frail

#9 - Swing 

#10 - Pattern

#11 - Snow

#12 - Dragon. I decided I really didn't want to draw dragon, but parts were ok. I'm super pleased with the result!!

#13 - Ash. I was so stumped and really didn't want to draw a cigarette. I would like to be here!

#14 - Overgrown. I really wanted to use a brush pen, but couldn't find mine in black (maybe I don't have one?) and decided this was a good opportunity to use some color!

#15 - Legend - (Urban), black eyed kids. I mostly wanted to draw something kinda creepy!

29 Faces - Feb 2017 03

Still chugging along! A little behind as I started missing some days, but I still am trying to (and not that far behind) finish all of the faces by the end of the month! I think that would be a first! This post gets me up to 19 (still have more I haven't scanned!!)

Weird day:
ended up spending time with people vs. sitting alone arting,
 random guy kept talking to me at airport, resulting in
fast, quick drawing on baggage claim ticket.

left: single line drawing
right: finger painting with gouache

remembering that I like painting with gouache, a lot

29 face 2/16 - 3

#5

I really enjoy looking through other people's 29 faces since there's so many variations that come out of the same prompt! This one was inspired by alarmcatstudio's line drawings, but instead I made 29 faces from a single line! This was a sharpie on bristol paper

 #6

I intended on doing something different for this one initially, but I like where it ended up! These were basic watercolor splotches (faces). Later I added hair, some slight facial features and eyes and then decided to sketch more definition on the hair and faces with a black copic brush tip. My paper's too big for my scanner!

 #7

Lesson: 1)Profiles are much harder than you think (I had google images for profiles up, but didn't really copy  anything/look while painting. I had to modify my brain definition/hand definition as I went along to make them more realistic/less cartoony 2) The right paintbrush helps. I went with something too large at first which made it difficult to get the details I wanted & then I wasn't liking the lack of smoothness on the tips of the paintbrushes and started trimming. Watercolor can be hard to tame, but a bad brush doesn't help.

That's 203 faces already! (not counting some in progress things!)


2/2016 faces! 2
2/2016 faces! 1

all previous 29 faces

29 Faces 2/16 - 2

#3

this one is a little abstract, but the 29 faces are there! I can't say this turned out exactly as I had hoped, but I still think it's kinda interesting. I might try this out again with the eyes in the middle and the mouths on the outside...29 eyes = ~12.4 degrees between each eye!

 #4

Another done with a dylusions stamp and copics.... no duplicates!

2/2016 faces! 1

all previous 29 faces

index doodles - circular rainbow, cool

Index doodles! Hello! I don't know why I didn't do them for a while, but a few weeks I decided to start them again. These are super simple and good to do while listening and easy to start and stop - just circles in the forms of dots, small circles and large circles in a limited palette, but I really like the resulting patterns. Hopefully I can work on the warmer colors for a complete rainbow next!

green brain swirl

Earlier this year I discovered one of my coworkers in my department is into painting and drawing as well. This has been both awesome and horrible. Awesome because I have someone to talk with things about and show things and bounce ideas off of. Awesome because he's always up for going out art supply shopping (one of the few things I actually enjoy shopping for) and we both always have our eyes open for sales... this is especially nice since we no longer work a semi-reasonable-walking-during-lunch distance to Dick Blick. Horrible because, well... I have a built in enabler and someone else reviewing art supplies and giving me suggestions. I really don't need any more encouragement to buy art supplies, pretty much ever. But that is ok - obviously in my very comprehensive list, the good outweigh the bad.

Anyway, this week we were talking about cleaning up and how that can be motivating to work on things since you come across supplies or inspiration and many things are more interesting to do than cleaning, so that's kinda what I did yesterday. And eventually I was staring at my copics thinking about how pretty the colors were and how I wanted to draw with them. I've been in this point of paralysis with drawing for a while because I just couldn't figure out what to draw. I was putting too much pressure on myself to know beforehand and so instead I just started drawing last night, put on some of my new (old, used) GusGus albums and ended up with this.....

 

 

My brain likes to go towards the organic, flowing, smooth shapes, green..... always the same, but different each time....I think I used about 20 different colors for this, all copics on marker paper.

29 faces 9/14 - 4

26, 27, 28 & 29 of 29 faces!

All 29 faces posted within a week and drawn within about 2 weeks! I'm glad I ended up using the same Canson marker paper with copics to draw faces from magazines about the same size for the whole set. It allowed me to see how much progress I was able to make sticking within the same confines and just changing things up. It's kinda crazy to look at some of the first faces and comparing them to these last couple sets because they've gotten much better.

When I did this last set and tried to add in some colors, I did come to some limitations of the marker paper. It seems to stop accepting ink before some of the other papers I've used and instead starts acting weird and moving ink around a lot and get weirdly textures (see 5 oclock shadow on the lower right and weird lines in the upper left.) Also, the colorless blender doesn't work as well on it. Still, I'm glad I tried it out. Yay for practicing & learning.

29 face 9/14 - 3

23, 24 & 25 of 29 faces

a new issue of allure? new faces to draw. also added in c9 today. and then I refilled c1 and went a little crazy accidentally...