Inktober Day 5

Today’s prompt is “flame.” Since it is October and the month of Halloween, I went back to one of my earlier pieces and redrew it in ink. I have done a cauldron a few times in October and have done them a few different ways. It has also popped up in my Little Witch Series. October is the Season of Witches so it only makes sense to draw some witch related items, like a cauldron to represent today’s prompt, “flame.”

Just a footnote of a sort, I have been sketching all of my ideas in my square Plumchester Sketchbook from Artsnacks first, before transferring the finals to my Innovative Journaling Halloween sketchbook, using the Arches Text Wove Paper. My Halloween Sketchbook is the Pathfinder size. It’s black with skulls woven into the binding and in the pull loop. I wish I had put red or purple leather inside so it would have a Dracula feel to it, but it’s pretty badass the way it is. I love it and it is the perfect size. The Arches Text Wove paper that Arthur likes to use when making his journals is a really nice paper. It has a little tooth and texture, but it performs well with dry or wet media. I have used watercolor, gouache, and acrylic on the paper. I don’t saturate it but it handles light applications very well. These are refills so when I fill one refill, I pull it out and add another. I can make them myself or order the machine stitched ones from Arthur, which come with a nice soft cover.

I originally purchased the IJ Halloween sketchbook (journal) for my Little Witch Series. There are some in there from last year. Just having this journal that screams Halloween is inspiring somehow. I like how the paper has a little “drag” to it so it slows the pen down for more precise drawing. It holds two refills so I guess I should get cracking and put some Little Witch stuff in the other refill.

Inktober Day 5 - "Flame" Pen and Ink cauldron over wood with lots of flames and some concoction brewing and bubbling in it. Pen and ink with grey wash. Pens shown, Lamy safari, Uniball Vision and Cambio
Inktober Day 5 – Flame
My Refillable Halloween Journal by Innovative Journal

inktober Day 4

Today’s prompt is scallop. I thought about doing some sort of design but I decided to take my mussels “inches” and make them into a larger 4×6 sketch and used scallops instead. OK, so it is a little macabre with the scallops crying over the ones that were cooked. I am not trying to make a statement or anything, my warped sense of humor was going a little in the “Far Side” direction.

If you are not familiar with the “Far Side” cartoons by Gary Larson, they were genius and took everyday things and turned them into humor, like cows, dogs and cats. Some of my favorites are the cows standing around on hind legs and smoking, one yells “car” and they all go back to grazing and doing regular cow things. There’s a frog that sticks his tongue to an airplane flying over and gets lifted in the air, but two of my favorites are the ones about dogs and cats and what they hear. These two are priceless. You need to read the dog one first to really appreciate the one for cats. It’s so true.

There’s also so the cartoon of the kid going to a mentally gifted school and trying to push the door that clearly says “pull.” Something we have all done at one time or another so the humor hits home. Gary had sooooo many cartoons. My coworkers and I used to stand in a bookstore at lunch time and cry over his books. We used to have everyone in the store laughing. We had one coworker who we would drag to the store when he came into the city so we could share the cartoons with him. Yeah, I think we actually bought him a copy, LOL.

Laughter truly is the best medicine and the best way to bring people together. Now that I think about it, we never complained about anything, we’d just go do something that made us laugh. That’s a good memory for me.

Inktober Day 4 - Scallop Pen and Ink drawing of a steaming bowl of scallops on a checkered tablecloth. There are scallop shells crying in front of the bowl because the others were cooked.
Inktober Day 4 – Scallop

Inktober Day 3

Good morning everyone! Today’s prompt is “bat.” Since it is October, I thought bat the animal would be better than a baseball bat. Although baseball still does run for another week or so. I am a Phillies fan so I hope we make it to the wild card game, at least. My husband is a Yankees fan so of course they clinched (eyes rolling). It’s not too bad with baseball and football in our house. I’m an Eagles fan (4-0) and he’s a Jets fan (notice I didn’t put the standings for the Jets), so the Eagles and Bucs are his back up teams. We have a saying in our house, well I do, that the Jets are the kiss of death for any player’s career. I said if I was a kid in the draft and the Jets picked me, I’d stay in school and wait for the next year. So there is a bunch of good natured busting of chops here in the house.

However, hubby is a RANGERs fan. Blech ptooie!!!!!!! I am a Flyers fan so we don’t discuss hockey unless I am gloating when the Rangers lose. I went to a Rangers/Blackhawks game once with hubby and was rooting for the Blackhawks. He goes with my daughter now when they are in Tampa.

For those of you who asked, we are on the East Coast of Florida, below the path that Ian took. We got a lot of wind (60+ gusts) and rain, but we fared well. Unfortunately, the West Coast not so well. I really feel bad for the Ft Myers region folks. Although Florida has hurricane building codes, there are many old Floridian structures that are being wiped out by these storms. It’s really sad to see them being wiped out and sad for the people who lived in them or conducted their businesses in them who have to rebuild. Yeah, they can rebuild, but it doesn’t have the same charm or memories, and when it floods, not even concrete is invincible. Our thoughts and prayers goes out to them.

Inktober Day 3 "Bat" - pen and ink drawing of a bat in a sketchbook using a black Uniball Vision pen and a Cambio brush pen with grey ink, also in the photo. Sketchbook was made by Innovative Journal
Inktober Day 3 – Bat

Inktober Day 2

For Day 2 of Inktober, I am sure that I am not the only one that used a mouse for today’s prompt, “scurry.” Whenever many of us hear the word scurry, we think of mice scooting across the floor. Which usually leads to someone screaming and if you have a cat, mayhem.

I played around with sketching mice for this one and settled on what I chose as my final idea. It was fun drawing mice although they aren’t something I normally pay attention to, unless the cat brought one into the house. My mom used to tell us entertaining stories about field mice when she and my dad were living in California. The mice used to come out of the fire place and duke it out. Now there’s an image, boxing mice. (Trying to figure out what they were doing in the fireplace?)

I was trying to find the post I saw this morning from Jake Parker, the artist that started Inktober. It tells about why he started Inktober (to help artists improve their drawing skills was one reason, and the important one I forgot to mention yesterday) and the ideas behind the challenge. I guess I will have to add the link tomorrow if I come across it again.

Adding my thoughts on ink, as an outdoor sketcher’s point of view, many artists, like myself, draw directly in ink because you want to get what is in front of you on paper as quickly as possible. When you are drawing on location, you don’t have much time if you are drawing something that will change, like people or animals. Or a delivery truck….When one parks in front of what you were originally drawing. Using pencil slows you down because no matter how hard you try not to, pencil enables you to erase marks, and the temptation to erase is too irresistible, inevitably bringing out the perfectionist/procrastinator in us and the subject long gone before scratched on the page with nothing to show for your time. Ink is there, ready to go (unless you forgot to refill your Lamy Safari) and although maybe not the most perfect of sketches, your recorded information in its raw form, has the subject captured on the page.

The other nice thing about ink drawing, all you need is paper and a pen and you can sketch anywhere.

pen and ink mouse sitting up on its high legs, wavy tail Inktober Day 2 "Scurry"
Come on Kitty, BRING IT.

Inktober 2022

It’s October….again….and that must mean it’s Inktober! The month where thousands of artists post mostly inky art to the internet and social media. Inktober started as a challenge for illustrators to take a break from creating digital art, by getting back to their inky roots and inky fingers or other traditional media. Going back to traditional media helps with the creative flow and inspiration. Choosing ink makes the challenge harder because you can’t erase ink when you make a mistake. There’s no “undo” button with ink, so it forces you to think on your feet and deal with what is in front of you.

Inktober has grown over the years and many copycat challenges have sprung up along with it until October is one hot mess of art on the internet. The Official Inktober Prompt List can be found on Instagram at @Inktober, the official Inktober account. If you aren’t into ink, there’s so many other lists out there to choose from like Mabs Drawlloween @mabgraves on Instagram. Mabs does a lot of her art in pencil so she prefers a drawing challenge instead of an Inky Challenge. All you have to do is search for October Art Challenges and you will find a lot of ideas.

Today’s Inktober prompt is “Gargoyle.” Looking at my gargoyle, whose name is “Larry,” I see a vague resemblance to one of the family’s grand dogs. Sorry Charlie, you’re a gargoyle model. (Charlie is a pit bull mix who’s at the mercy of one very bossy cat and a hissy kitty. Two for the price of one.)

Larry is just hanging out. The rest of his kind are usually attached as downspouts on the sides of structures, like Notre Dame Cathedral, or other Churches and buildings. Gargoyles were originally used as gutters to move rain water away from structures to keep mortar and other materials from eroding away. Larry found himself a nice perch in the park and if he stays still, people think he’s a statue. Except for the drool that occasionally comes out his mouth…..those french fries cooking on the food trucks in the park smell so good……

Pen and ink sketch of a gargoyle perched on a column. Inktober 2022 Day 1
Inktober 2022 Day 1 – Gargoyle

Horse

Another project that I have been working on is horse illustrations/art. Something I did a long time ago that I picked up again just recently. We used to own racehorses and I would sit in the paddock and sketch the horses as they were getting tacked up and harnessed for races. A lot of the horse folks would peek over my shoulder as I used to sketch. It was a lot of fun and I used to love it. We haven’t had a racehorse for a while now but it was awesome. My husband used to drive our horses in the races.

I also collect model horses and being part of the model horse world, you have to go to Kentucky for the Breyerfest at least once. Breyerfest is an annual model horse event held at the Kentucky Horse Park every year. I went a few times and it was a lot of fun. I did a lot of things there, like watch a polo match, that I was never able to do before. I was able to see John Henry and Cigar, were stabled there. (John Henry was a naughty biting horse so there was extra fencing around his paddock.) Some racing greats like Man O’ War are buried there. There are breeds from around the world there so you can see them in person. My personal fave is the Akhal Take. I want one.

The American Saddlebred Association is headquartered there and that brings us to today’s sketch. This was originally intended to be posted on Independence Day but didn’t, and it was the next one in my sketch book, so I am posting it today.

American Saddlebreds, aka Saddle Horses, were bred to essentially be gaited riding horses. They are a true American breed and they have a long history for gentle temperament, used as mounts in battle, performance in the show ring, as well as just pleasure riding.

Chocolate Palomino Saddle horse with rider with red white and blue banners for a national holiday. Horse is doing an gaited pace.
American Saddle Horse Sketch in my Pentalic Watecolor Sketchbook

Mixed media Tempest

As mentioned in my last post, I have a homemade sketchbook in which I have been creating mixed media/collage spreads, and I have been trying to finish it for a while. Sometimes, I spend so much time on things I think matters, that I forget about the things I used to enjoy doing. It took me a while to get the hang of the whole collage thing, too. It’s smart to keep up the practice, at least weekly.

I have a large amount of 4×6 collage art because of my cat project that I started several years ago. I’d like to keep doing the postcards because I get a ton of ideas which led to creating larger works from those 4×6 pieces. Whenever you feel like you are getting stale, play in a sketchbook or do some postcard sized work. It really helps.

For instance, this page from my sketchbook has elements in it that surprise me. I look at the page and realized that I created some patterns that I can use in design work. This page was all intuitive work, placing things and not thinking about it, or at least, not planning. Just going with the flow. Sometimes when you go with the moment and don’t get hung up about perfection, creativity just happens. This isn’t meant to be a masterpiece, just sketchbook play to see how far I can go with it. Looking at this, I can almost hear Richard Dreyfus and Robert Shaw singing “Spanish Ladies” or something from John Williams and “Jaws” just a little ominously playing in the background.

(Like right now, I can’t get that Tango music out of my head, you know, the one from “True Lies?” …with Arnold Schwarzenegger and Jamie Lee Curtis…. Por Una Cabeza. I now have it as an ear worm because “Discovery of Witches” closed Season 3 with Por Una Cabeza. I am sure that will turn up in something I have created LOL….Harry, Helen, let’s not get distracted…….)

I guess there are worse things that could be an ear worm. Por Una Cabeza is pretty bad ass.

pale aqua background with collaged ephemera enhanced with gel and paint pens. A few sharks, fish and a clipping from an old painting magazine.
Mixed Media – Tempest Sketchbook page

Mixed Media/Collage

Well, it turns out that the Inchie challenge was only 11 days, not 12. I was surprised when I pulled up emails Saturday morning and there was no prompt. Well that was a bummer because the Inchie challenge was fun. I’ll probably keep 2×2 squares with me to work on when I am out of the house. They would make cool thumbnail squares and I have plenty of art that I haven’t posted yet.

That being said…

Several years ago, before Teesha Moore had her stroke, I was a member of Teesha’s Artstronauts Club. I really miss that club. It was chock full of mixed media collage (MM/Collage) goodness. I started a few mixed media collage sketchbooks that I still have to finish. Some morphed into my Zombie doll Sketchbooks and my creepy portrait sketchbooks that I did finish. I never really thought of myself as a collage artist until I took a few of Carla Sonheim’s classes and things started to click. I have been playing with patterns, lettering and other techniques that gave me the skills I need to finish some of these unfinished sketchbooks.

Most of my MM/ collage sketchbooks are home made and hand stitched so that they would could be a specific shape or size and they have a theme. Most have a limited amount of pages which makes the project easy to finish.

This sketchbook is a mixture of cut collage from pretty much anything; some collage is home made from paint drips and such. I used Teesha Moore’s “Amazing 16 Page Journal” format. It’s a full sheet of 30 x 22 hot or cold press Fabriano watercolor paper that’s cut into 3 10×22 pieces and are folded into pages and stitched to create the 16 page sketchbook. On my mixed media pages I use paint markers and gel pens, fortune cookie fortunes, cut out lettering and quotes, basically a miss mosh of pieces assembled to make a whole page.

This has been in my “to do” pile a long time and I and finally posting some of these pages. The page size is 8×10 and the excess wasn’t trimmed, it is a flap that became a design of it’s own on one side and on the other it was part of a full page spread. I had a ton of chihuahuas from a 365 desk calendar that I save and used in various art projects. Lots of paint marker embellishments.

8x10 Mixed media collage sketchbook page using various bits and scraps of collage. Chihuahuas, old ticket stubs, embellishments with paint markers. The Chihuahua heads were added to "bodies."
Pages 2/3 Mixed media collage
8x10 Mixed media collage sketchbook page with lavender background using various bits and scraps of collage. Chihuahuas, embellishments with paint markers.
Page/Flap 1 Mixed Media Collage

Inchies Day 11

One more day of Inchies! I can’t say that this hasn’t been fun because it was a lot of fun. I like experimenting with tiny art. Today’s prompt is “interwoven” and I went in a bit of a different direction. We went swimming very early this morning and there was lightning out over the Atlantic. We debated the wisdom of our swim but we could see the storm clouds being shredded by the wind, slowly breaking up the top of the storm. The storm hovered offshore before being pushed out to sea.

This morning’s clouds inspired these Inchies;

It also inspired a bit of…writing…I usually make time in the morning to squeeze in a little creative writing. It helps my overall creativity.

2x2 inch square of watercolors in Indigo, Ultramarine Blue, yellow and pink....abstract pieces of an early morning storm, white gel pen illustrating the lightning
2 x 2 Inch squares of abstract storm clouds

Lightning

In the distance, lightning flashes 

a spider web of electricity 

bolts down and across the sky

“It’s going offshore, right?”

“Will we be able to swim this morning?”

The sun is still considering its rising

But has to compete with the storm

Looming menacingly 

Slate blue thunderclouds

Adorned with puffs of light gray

An angry Poseidon reflected 

In the face of the storm

Thunder grumbles and rolls

“Should we get out of the pool?”

“But it looks like it’s going away

See, the top of the storm is melting away”

“Not yet!” says Poseidon

Stirring the sea with even more dark clouds

The winds challenge the sea god

Continuing to blow off the tops of his storm

Poseidon’s face is gone

Blown away along with the clouds

On the dancing taunting winds

gleefully shearing the clouds in the storm 

More lightning protests behind the clouds 

Slowly being pushed away 

But not without 

More clouds stacking and building

Poseidon shaking his fist at the winds

“I’ll get you next time” as the clouds and storm 

Get blown out to sea

Inchies Day 10

This is Day 10 of the Inchie Challenge with two days to go. Today’s prompt is “eclipse.” When I first saw the prompt. I thought of a bunch of little partially covered moons, but I also thought of a “man in the moon” concept and the “man” bemused that his light was being blocked by the sun.

I played with both concepts to see how they would look. The nice thing about working small is you aren’t using up a lot of art supplies to experiment and play and you can see quickly if something isn’t working. I did a second man (boy?) in the moon because the first one wasn’t as crisp and clear as I would have liked it to be. I added the dark background, stars and some “satellites.”

2x2 inch square art...Moon faces with the light slowly being taken away to eclipse the face of the moon, which looks like a boy/man. Also two 2x2 squares of moon rocks
Moon Eclipse Inchies and moon rocks

As I was working, and being a horse lover, the term “eclipse” made me think of the name of the British racehorse, “Eclipse” who’s descendants are still on the thoroughbred tracks all over the world even today. The American Eclipse Award commemorates the memory of Eclipse and the awards are given out annually to recognize outstanding achievements such as “American Horse of the Year,” American Champion 3 year old colt, American Champion 3 year old filly, American Champion Steeplechase horse, etc. The award is also given out to the Owner, Breeder, Trainer and Jockey of the Year.

A large amount of race horses today carry Eclipse in their bloodlines.

Tiny sketch of Eclipse the thoroughbred racehorse from the UK. Pen and Ink drawing with watercolor (burnt umber and Sap green)
Eclipse the thoroughbred horse (UK)

My little Eclipse isn’t meant to be a portrait, just an Inchie. But sometimes drawing whimsy, when you can draw the real thing so well, takes a bit of practice to make him look like a cute illustration and not a breed profile photo, LOL. If you research Eclipse on line, the portraits of Eclipse in the 1700’s look awkward. I don’t think he had a snaky neck but that’s how horses were painted back then. I would love to see better drawings because horses like Eclipse were closer to the foundation stock of the Thoroughbred.