Well, what started out as an amazing month of drawing, ended abruptly when I had a bike crash two weeks ago. One mistake and I hit the ground. Hubby said it was like watching slow motion. I desperately tried to correct my trajectory with the ground and almost came away unscathed until I instinctively put my arm down. I really need to take tumbling classes or something. Hey, at least I was wearing helmet. I might want to consider kevlar for the rest of me.
I am sporting a festive Halloween purple cast. My thumb and entire right arm are encased in a solid prison. Since I am right handed, I am pretty much at a stand still. I am typing this left handed and using many colorful metaphors because I have to keep making corrections.
This could be a good time to use Siri but she doesn’t appear to be an option on WordPress.
So, I have to sit and do nothing or try to draw with my left hand. I opted for plan B – Lefty draw.
So here is the best that I can do to close out Inktober and Drawlloween.
My post for yesterday isn’t what I planned. I had a page in my morning pages that I meant to decorate for the month of October and I wasn’t able to get to it yet.
Yesterday morning started out with me working on the October page. I left it for a bit to go out with my husband to take a lunch time bike ride. I figured on doing my Drawlloween and Inktober sketches when I got back.
Well, I had a bad fall off my bike, so I had to finish this drawing with mostly using my left hand. I am also typing this with my left hand. I did get x-rays and they don’t think anything is broken but I have a sling and it’s painful to use my right hand/arm.
I am not sure what sketches I’ll be able to do for a few days so this may be the final for Inktober/Drawlloween 2023.
Today’s Inktober prompt is “saddle.” Most of this month I have been drawing sketches from my head or making them up. Today I opted to just draw from a reference photo so I could get the details of the saddle correct. I also used a reference photo for the owl. I use the Museum App on the iPhone whenever I need reference photos because they are free and there isn’t any copyright because the photos are posted by the people who take them. They are aware of that the photos could be used by an artist and by posting them, they are giving their permission for them to be used. The idea behind the Museum App is to give artists and creatives inspiration for their art. Many members posting photos are also artists.
The horse was posted by Patti Sandham and the Owl was posted by Kosta Milovanovic.
What I will do after posting my sketches here is to also post them on the Museum App. People love to see what artists do with their photos. I was pretty basic on both of mine but I may also pull them into Photoshop to color them or incorporate them into other art. Or I could just use my sketches as my own reference photos for another piece.
Saddle
Today’s Drawlloween prompt is “ominous owl.” This owl actually looked pretty agitated and was giving the photographer the stink eye. The eyes in the photo are orange and they are really cool. I thought of just adding the orange to the sketch. I still may. He/She was a little fluffy and looked pretty well fed. I think owls are pretty cool. We used to have owls nesting in our trees in Port St Lucie. We have Barred Owls around the house here and hear them a lot, which means Lucy doesn’t go outside unescorted. There are Eagles and red shouldered hawks, too. And Osprey, but they eat fish.
Today’s Inktober prompt is “demon” but I opted to go with my gut on this one. The temps have dropped considerably where I live in Florida. We are in the frost zone now so we do have to watch for our tender plants when it gets down to frost temperatures. Last night’s temps were down to about 55 or so which for us, is pretty cool. I had to take Mack to Gainesville yesterday which is even further North so I was wearing jeans yesterday! It was chilly up there!
Mack was sitting outside today in the sun, just loving the cool air. Lucy on the other hand, was shivering and would lay in the sun to stay warm. It’s funny how that works,lol. Early this morning, when they went out to go potty, Lucy flew into the house and onto the bed and dove under the covers. Mack sauntered in and looked at Lucy like “really?”
So my little sketch today was my take on the temperature disparity on the two dogs. Mack really does roll his eyes at her in his way. They do have the Bonnie and Clyde thing down, though. I just had to get up and investigate because I her bags rustling and someone left the panty open and the two thieves were trying to open the bags of dog food…..well more Mack…Lucy was studying the process intently. The pair of them are a piece of work.Today’s Drawlloween prompt is “ghoul” and I have been pulling out my pencil stash because some of my mechanical pencils are too light and I have been trying to make them work. I had an “Aha” moment when I realized that one of them was sporting the B lead and the others had come with HB. I just need to get the different sizes in B instead of HB. I had a lot of fun with this one. I love Halloween!
I did a sketch based loosely on Chloe, as an angel somewhere over the Rainbow Bridge. It’s been a while since I sketched her, and she’s been gone since January. The sting of the pain of her loss is still there, though Lucy is a good distraction. I had to do my sketches in a hurry this morning because I have to take Mack to Gainesville for a specialist appointment. So I did my sketches quickly this morning and I am making my post a little short today as well because I need to leave in a few minutes.
Angel
Today’s Drawlloween prompt is “Black Lagoon.” Today’s sketch is a mixture of pencil and colored pencil because I couldn’t quite get the effect I wanted in just plain ol’ pencil. I like the light effect of the colored pencils so I may keep using these for the rest of the month.
I wasn’t sure what to draw and any examples weren’t what I envisioned a dagger should look like. So I winged it. I was thinking along the lines of maybe something more medieval where carrying a dagger was necessary for survival and was a way of life. Maybe even a little Shakespearean, with a touch of drama. I was thinking of scenes of movies where the dagger had to have balance, to be wielded with skill and speed. Nothing fancy that would interfere with it’s purpose for existing and it’s use. Something that Pedro Pascal would use in either Game of Thrones or maybe the Mandalorian.
That sort of dagger.
Dagger
Today’s Drawlloween prompt is “reaper.” This sketch took a little more time because I wanted something less like the everyday grim reaper. A walking decaying epitome of death, looking like it was ready to crumble and turn to dust. Sort of like Death in the Deathly Hallows….searching for the ones that are using invisibility cloaks to avoid detection. You can only get so far being invisible. Eventually Death finds you because you have to take that cloak off some time. The hooded shroud that Death wears is more powerful than any super hero cape. The fact that Death is leaning forward with great age and has to be supported with a cane doesn’t mean that Death is frail and weak. Death has super natural strength.
Amazingly enough, Death is not usually portrayed with any sort of side kick or assistant. Death’s vocation is singular. Death just glides through the After Life, collecting souls. Death isn’t portrayed with any sort of transportation, either. Most curious. Even the headless horseman has a horse. And a weapon.
Well on that note, that’s it for today! A spooky story for the final countdown to Halloween.
Today’s Inktober prompt is “castle” but since it is the annular eclipse day, I decided to use that as my prompt instead. I was a little bummed that you had to be in the Southwest to see the ring of fire part of the eclipse, but Florida got a partial eclipse. I had to look up what times the partial could be seen in my area, and I tried so methods (that failed) to “see” it. (cutting out circles on 3×5 cards doesn’t create the desired results.)
On the Weather Channel, they kept saying to use a colander. I was like, “seriously? A colander?”
Yeah, guess what? The colander worked. It was pretty cool. We were almost 50% covered here. I had to run and get hubby and show him. I have to say, the sun wasn’t as strong during the eclipse but the colander showed it’s happy little moon-sicles. That was really cool. I’ll have to remember that trick.
Day 14 – Annular Eclipse
Today’s Drawlloween prompt is Goth Moth. I have no idea what that was supposed to mean so I researched it on Duck Duck Go. (I don’t use Google.) I couldn’t find anything specific except a few wild looking moths and a lot of drawings so I moved on to the Museum App. The Museum App (formerly the Sktchy app) on IOS is chock full of all sorts of reference photos, posted by artists and non-artists, hoping inspire someone to create art from their photo. I used one submitted by Joan Martin, that was especially intriguing. There were a lot of good photos to choose from and I wondered how folks were seeing all of these cool moths. I need to go looking for moths. Anyway I digress and this is my Goth Moth.
I introduced Lucy at the beginning of this month. We were all mourning the loss of Chloe, but by May, the emptiness from the lack of Chloe’s presence hung around the house like a dark shade. Lucy brings a spark back into the household. Mack has been getting his paybacks for all the times that he pushed (shoved) Chloe out of the way so he could hog up all the attention. Lucy is the new attention hog, using her puppy cuteness and feigned helplessness to get love and play time.
Mack hasn’t been well the past few months, the vets have being trying to find the cause (we think it’s sinus but it could be dental). The vets aren’t completely sure it’s his heart (he has a murmur) but they aren’t ruling it out so they have him on a few meds to help with lungs and heart and he has to go for dental x-rays and a few other tests to see what’s going on. This has been an ongoing issue since he had his teeth cleaned back in the winter of 2019.
n the meantime, he’s been doing well and trying to push his way back into the spotlight. (We give him lots and lots of love, but Mack wants it all LOL.) This means stealing Lucy’s bones and setting her up for getting in hot water. He’ll make the announcement to go out to pee, we’ll let him out, she runs out, he comes back in and steals her bone, where we’ll hear a wail of protest when she finds out. She’s so dramatic. It’s actually pretty funny to see her throw a fit at him, she slides under the furniture upside down and pops out near him, shrieking because she won’t mess with the grumpy old man directly. John usually intervenes. I take the “you snooze you lose” approach. She has other bones, a whole collection that she stows away on the couch because Mack can’t jump up anymore. We call it her bone garden. I’ll put them in her play yard and she takes out all the bones and her favorite toys back out of the play yard to put them back on the couch. She has a meltdown when Mack goes in her play yard. She’ a pip.
Today’s sketch pretty much sums up their relationship.
Rise
Today’s Drawlloween prompt is Frankenstein. Try as I might, I couldn’t make him look monster-ish. This Frankie wanted to be his own person, and he looks like a younger Frankie so I let it be. Ol’ Frankie isn’t getting so much “air time” today with Mack and Lucy stealing the show. But he’s pondering life, or maybe what to have for lunch, which is what I will be doing shortly.
Well that’s it for today! And the Phils have made it to the National League Championship again!! Woo hooo!
Today’s Inktober prompt is “spicy. ” (Just a quick note, it’s spelled “spicey” on the official list.)
I thought of a few things to illustrate today’s word, but as someone who used to grow hot peppers, spicy has a more focused meaning. Back when I had my garden in South Jersey, we grew many varieties of hot peppers. I used to get the Shepherd’s Seeds catalogs and they had some really unusual varieties. There were Firecracker piquins, poblanos, cayennes and the piece de resistance, the Red Savina Habanero. Ooooo, this critter was HOT. The Red Savina was was supposedly the hottest pepper ever, even hotter than scotch bonnets……I would chop up one and put it in a huge pot of chili and WOW.
Then, a new comer appeared, and grabbed the title of the hottest pepper, known as the Ghost pepper. The Ghost pepper actually got its name from a mistranslation of it’s name from it’s county of origin. And it’s a red pepper. I was expecting a ghostly white pepper, just ready and waiting to scare down some taste buds.
I figured the Ghost pepper would be the perfect subject today, making them ghostly in color and giving the little heaters some sinister faces. Their smug nasty little smiles are going to fade when they find out that the Carolina Reaper kicked their a$$ as the newest reigning hottest pepper. All hail to the King of heat.
Spicy
Today’s Drawlloween prompt is toad. I figured I’d use something a little more benevolent than the Bufo toad. I actually wanted to practice my toad drawing skills so I went to the Museum App to look to see who may have posted a Toad reference photo. There were about 30-ish so I scrolled until I found one and sketched it. If you ever need reference photos, the Museum App is free and lots of people post photos, hoping that an artist will use their photo. Lots of fun.
Well that’s it for today! Have a good evening! Go Phils!
Todays prompt is wander. Mack and Lucy’s favorite. They are constantly on the look out for an open exterior door. Lucy is an escape artist and we have to be ever vigilant to ensure she doesn’t sneak out. Mack just wants to wander and pee on everything outside the house to set up his perimeter. He won’t go far, unless that tree down the street catches his attention or that tall blade of grass that looks really tempting.
Lucy, on the other hand, would take off and we’d find her in the next county (Yes, she was spayed last week.). One thing about missing Chloe; Chloe did not like unnecessary exercise so bolting out the front door was not an issue. Chloe was so smart, too, she ran the household. Mack is stubborn (aka pigheaded) and Lucy is a space cadet. Yes, she’s cute and adorable, but she’s “no thoughts, just vibes.” Lucy is very athletic and we thought about obstacle training her because she would love the interaction and the activity. We’re just not sure there’s a brain attached. Well, maybe we could rely on muscle memory. It’s a thought.
Anyway, when I look at this little sketch and their little Bonnie and Clyde escape jaunt, I am thinking that their soundtrack would be Rusted Root’s “Send me on my Way…”
Today’s Drawlloween prompt is web. I was going to draw a web and a spider, but the other day we say this web on a fence and so I decided to do a close up of a spider web woven on a wrought iron fence. You see these occasionally around the area and they twinkle and glisten in the early mornings. We live in Florida where there are a lot of newer communities so down here, we have to go to the few older Florida towns that still exist to see older structures. Sadly, developers want to destroy the old Florida communities, especially by water. There’s a developer that wants to turn Jensen Beach into another Boca. I don’t know why they have to destroy the old instead of just updating and keeping the charm of the older buildings. I love traveling around Florida to find all the old charming communities.
Gina Lento: Fine Art and Illustration 
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