Inktober Days 24 through 31

Here is the final week of Inktober 2017

For me, Inktober 2017 was not about being “popular” or creating works of art.  I believe that creating art, even in sketchbooks, is about finding myself, my voice, my style, and not following the herd.  I didn’t care if I got a lot of “likes” when I originally posted these on Sktchy.  It was about my own challenge of doing short timed sketches first thing in the morning, experimenting with colored ink instead of using watercolor or another media to add color, using a waterbrush to spread the ink to create values.  It was about practice and finding ways to work quicker when I am out sketching in public.  It was about perfecting and tweaking my ideas of interpreting the prompts and finding ways of manipulating the media.  To not get hung up on being perfect, to create more art and less representation.  

Most of the sketches were done in my morning pages in a box that I draw on the page and reserve for sketches.  This is why some have a color “frame” around them.

Enjoy these final Inktober 2017 sketches.







Recent sketches out and about

This past Wednesday I went out with my sketch club to sketch at the local bowling alley.


Yesterday, I went into the city to sketch with the NYC Urban Sketchers.  We were sketching several alleged haunted houses.  The first one is a Colonial style home that was once a speakeasy. It is the home of the Gay Street Phantom.


Haunted house #2 was a fail because itnwas behind scaffolding so some of us sketched the historical home of Emma Lazarus.  You know, she wrote the poem on the plaque on the base of the Statue of Liberty:

The New Colossus

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame, 

With conquering limbs astride from land to land; 

Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand 

A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame 

Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name 

Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand 

Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command 

The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame. 

“Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!” cries she 

With silent lips. “Give me your tired, your poor, 

Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, 

The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. 

Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me, 

I lift my lamp beside the golden door!” 

So there is your history lesson for the day….


It was getting pretty chilly and by midday, most of us were getting cold.  We went to Washington Square for lunch.  I sketched the church on the left  because I was too cold to eat.


The page on the right was our final stop on the tour de Haunted houses.  This Haunted Fire House in NYC is where a fireman hung himself because he caught his wife cheating on him.  Firemen used to see him his ghost, oh wait, excuse me, he was an “apparition American.” Anderson Cooper lives here now. Which probably explains the white hair.  John says that Anderson Cooper is probably the ghost.

NYC Urban Sketching at the Dyckman Farmhouse

Today I went into NYC to sketch with the NYC chapter of Urban Sketchers.  Today’s sketch outing was a joint venture with the Urban Sketchers of Indonesia to commemorate the Treaty of Breda, where the Dutch traded Manhattan to the English for a monopoly on nutmeg.  We are trading sketches with the Indonesians and this is the first time two Urban Sketcher chapters sketched jointly. We sketched at the Dyckman Farmhouse on Broadway in the Bronx.  Yes, there is a farmhouse in Manhattan.

Inktober sketches Days 6 – 12

I haven’t been posting these daily because I’d rather post them as a group.  Most of these Inktober sketches are 5 minute sketches except for the Breakfast Crawl sketch that I snapped a photo of before I added watercolor to it.   I start my  sketches by checking the Inktober prompt for the day that is taped to my calendar, then I use the Sktchy app for my inspiration.



For the ones that I do in my morning pages, I set my timer for 5 minutes. This way I am forced to say what I need to about the subject with minimum lines and it forces me to work quickly. 

My own personal Inktober challenge has been to add a five-minute, timed sketch to my morning routine. This way, no matter how the day goes, I still did one sketch. It helps break artist’s block for me, and I would recommend the five-minute exercise to anyone looking to establish a daily creative habit. It is one baby step in the right direction and anyone can do it. It forces me to not be so hung up on Perfectionism, which can be a form of procrastination and avoidance, and just sketching for five minutes can make all the difference with skills and creating quick art.





If you click on the link below, you can see #8 and the inspiration from Sktchy:

http://sktchy.com/VUnVK

Breakfast Crawl #5

Yesterday was Patchogue’s 5th Breakfast crawl.  I drew my own map of the Breakfast Crawl and submitted it to The Draw and Cook, and it was accepted!  

You can see the map here:

http://www.theydrawandtravel.com/illustrations/10616-breakfast-crawl-5-in-patchogue-new-york

John and I bought the 5 ticket crawl so we we only able to sample 5 of the 15 participating restaurants.   

I sketched what we ate:

Inktober sketches Days 2-5

 I really didn’t want to do Inktober again because I already have a daily sketching habit.  I had to come up with something new to make it fun for me.  So, my personal Inktober challenge is to add a 5 minute timed sketch to my morning routine. This way, no matter HOW the day went, I still did one sketch. 

 This also helps to break any artist’s blocks for me and it starts the day in the right direction.  I would recommend the 5 minute exercise to anyone looking to establish a daily creative habit. 5 minutes is a baby step in the right direction and anyone can spare 5 minutes a day.  Some people get hung up on the sketch being perfect.  It’s only a sketch!  Perfectionism is a form of procrastination and avoidance or basically, just another excuse people use to not follow through.  Sketching for 5 minutes can make all the difference in your skill level. If you get too hung up on being perfect, you’ll never finish anything. So set a timer and get stuff done!

Here are days 2-5…there also suggested prompts.  Sometimes I follow the prompt, sometimes I don’t….



Horses and yesterday’s Inktober Sketch

I spent over a week researching and working on this map that I did as a very belated Sketchbook Skool Assignment.  I was away when the class was “in session” and I mulled over ideas and nothing really inspired me until I saw they were requesting maps for Asia.  Then I had to mull that one over and almost passed that assignment over when I thought of horses.   So I did some research on horse breeds that originated in Asia and came up with this map.


I do have a scanned version so if you are interested in a print, please contact me.

Also, I did this yesterday as my husband was driving us to South Jersey to help my son.  This was my Inktober Day 1 sketch.  I posted it in Sktchy and on my sketch club’s Facebook page yesterday but never got a chance to post it on Social Media…