2015 was my first Inktober. The challenge is to draw something in ink each day in October. It’s really useful if you want to improve your inking skills or draw more regularly. The official website is http://inktober.com. I posted daily uploads to Twitter, Flickr and Pinterest, so if you follow me on those sites, you’ve probably seen these pictures already. Continue reading
The walls round my desk are painted in a colour perfectly named “happy yellow”. I have some lovely shelves stained dark and covered in books, notebooks, many bottles of ink, paint and other goodies. They’re just above my computer so I rearrange things and change what’s on display to keep it interesting. Some things are there to make me smile, my supplies are close and lure me to play. There are books I want to read and a backlog of journals and notebooks remind me to write too.
An A5 watercolour cartoon illustration. That moment when your cat suddenly realises it didn’t quite manage to jump onto the table. You see a range of expressions followed by the denial face as they swiftly exit the scene.
I sketched the idea for this cartoon a while ago, and thought it would be fun to work it into a cartoon illustration. After playing with different pencil sketches of the composition, I simplified my doodle and the final composition focuses right in on the birds.
I haven’t used fine liners for inking before, I prefer brush and nib strokes, but it’s fun to play with a different outline style.
Another painting, this time it’s a rural landscape. I took a bit longer painting this one, just because I was sitting for several shorter sessions and not an afternoon of determined practice. But as I’m trying to loosen up, I’m going to push up the speed again. It’s really satisfying filling up my sketchbook with paintings and feeling my skills developing each day.
I’m also transferring my landscape practice into digital art too, to finish the background on a horse painting that has sat gathering virtual dust.
I will also be working on a series of cartoons, but more details on those once they’re in full production. Yes, I do tease, don’t I? mad grin
My first attempt at painting a narrow boat. Given that I want to live on the canal at some point, I thought I should practice my boats! And water… Reflections are fun but challenging.
This is an A5 sized painting from my sketchbook. I took time to draw a few different composition sketches and really plan the painting out. This gave me a great opportunity to sketch the boat a few times before I had to transfer the outline to my sketch pad.
It feels like years since I was scanning and posting pictures from my sketchbooks, so I hope this one makes up for my neglect!
It’s a small (A5) watercolour from my sketchbook. I’ve been working through some watercolour exercises to give myself a wee refresher course. I’m not usually a landscape painter, so it’s a chance for me to work right out of my comfort zone and see what happens.
The other thing I’ve been working on is my painting speed. That’s improving too, so I guess this means I’ll have no excuse for leaving it so long between posts in future!
I’m reading ‘Think Sketchbook’ just now, and it occurred to me that our humble Sketchbook is the key to our creative potential. If you’re thinking, “well, duh!” here me out… When we were in art class, our teachers all said their own thing when they explained sketchbooks to us. We were told to use them, but were we all told how to use them? Really use them, and why?
I remember hearing about exploring ideas, practice sketches and gathering reference drawings. But not the nitty gritty of recording your thoughts and random ideas as they occurred. It felt more like we were to decide what we should draw and draw it. I don’t really remember play and fun. I do remember being told my books were important for art course entry and employers. Which landed a critic parrot right onto my shoulder! Instead of unleashing creative mayhem in there, half my mind was thinking what I could do that was impressive. The last thing an artist needs is an intimidating sketchbook.
So I’m reading this book and it’s obvious why I feel I’m not a full member of the artist club, why I see other artists and wonder how they seem so creative and where those wild ideas come from. It’s all in the sketch books. They’re having a blast in theirs, mine feels like a job interview waiting room…
In the last few years I’ve set the goal of building a portfolio, painting a range of things till I’m comfy with that subject and aiming to draw on those experiences to work on more creative pieces. But this has been like saying, “you can get pudding once you eat your greens,” then eating greens for years. No wonder I frequently lack enthusiasm! I worried maybe I wasn’t cut out for art because every other artist seems much more enthusiastic than I feel. I had all sorts of theories for my reluctance, when obviously I’m fine, just missing the bleeding obvious as usual.
I think it’s good having goals etc, but we must allow play, sketching, doodling and recording our thoughts too. To reach the point of wild creative art we need to record thoughts as they come, not only those that match our goals or to do list. Keep paper and pencil with us always to make notes or doodle as things pop in out heads and effectively diary our thoughts.
When I was reading Julia Cameron’s ‘Artist’s Way’ I got a tiny pocket notebook and it went everywhere with me. I’d be checking my sheep and a phrase or idea would come to mind. I just had to know I had my book and ideas arrived and went in it. It filled up, as did my big notebooks indoors. All I needed was the book and an open mind. Which is exactly what I need for my art. No critic or thinking, just spill my head onto paper and see what ideas come. It might be ugly, bizarre, disjointed and seem useless. But I’ve had story ideas like that which later fitted a subsequent story. Ideas also develop, and getting them down helps me remember and ruminate on them. Every idea is worth recording, just for that.
The really daft thing is that I had a taste of this at a temp job where I had nothing to do most of the time. My boss actively encouraged me to draw because we got along so well she enjoyed my company. In between sporadic admin jobs, I had a pad and filled it with doodles, ideas, designs. One after another all day. And it was fun! That is how I need to Sketchbook!
More sketchbook scans will follow…
After a bit of cartoon practice, I decided to get some speed sketching practice with little Sally as my model.
I’m sure whenever she notices I’m looking at her, she gets the fidgets! It took a few aborted poses before I got the second sketch. Even then, she still moved her head and paws mid way through.
