Here are my pictures for Inktober 2016.
I wanted to really focus on improving my technique and developing a style for my ink drawings. I’ve also uploaded larger versions to my Flickr account here if you’d like to see them in detail.
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
Two more drawings from my sketch book. The first was a close up of a squirrel eating. Around here the squirrels seem to divide their time between eating food, burying food, performing acrobatics to acquire food and playing daredevil with other squirrels and cats. Probably trying to guard their food! I wish these were red squirrels but I find it hard to dislike grey squirrels in London, they are such entertaining little creatures. Especially when they perform acrobatics above our garden at full speed.
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…
I haven’t skipped a single day of my sketch book challenge since I started.
happy dance
A few more scans for you 🙂
Both quality and quantity are increasing already, and making myself draw EVERY day whether I feel like it or not, I’m having to find a way of working in any mood or situation. Which was another of my goals. I learned that being in a really grouchy mood makes for very tense, ugly work when I’m horribly critical of myself. But after a few hours of ugly cartoon faces and a dreadful horsey, I just got to that “oh, what the hell” point and like magic a sketch flew onto the paper one bold line after another. I look at that page with the horrible horse and the free one beside it and they don’t even look like the same person drew them. But that day was a valuable lesson for me. Here’s the scan so you see what I mean.
I’m doing cartoon practice and also more realistic work. I’ve always been a bit too meticulous and I love relaxing while I do very careful texturing in pencil. You get into a rhythm and that becomes like a meditation for me. So I have used my sketchbooks to draw quickly and choose random poses (currently horses) to challenge myself on the accuracy side too.
Well, the good news is that I’ve been drawing every day since I started my challenge. The bad news is that I haven’t quite filled a page a day. Still progress though, and I did have good reason for being a bit slow.
My partner had one of his bikes stolen on Friday so we had police round over the weekend and I wasn’t my calmest on Saturday to sit down and draw. What I should have done is shading and texturing because the rhythm of that is just amazing at calming me. But I was starting a new sketch of a horse, and I just got grumpy because the outline was all jagged and tensed up. I didn’t stop to think “how can you relax yourself and draw too. My critical mind jumped all over the sketchpad instead. Critical mind can’t even draw curtains. The horse it attempted looked like a cow after a nuclear accident so I put it out of its misery. Learned my lesson though.
Anyway, here are 2 scans from the sketchbook. The first horse on the second sheet actually looks like the kind of freaky horse I drew as a kid. I think he was Saturday’s freak horse come back to haunt me. Glad it’s not Halloween!
This is your fault, mum! Remember that hint about wanting a pic of your new sheepy? I might have gotten a little carried away… Though I now expect you to knit him a proper Bob Marley hat for Christmas hehehe.
I thought I’d try drawing a sheep in striped hat, similar to one Bob Marley had. Because black Wensleydale sheep do look like they have dreadlocks. They just do….
So um sorry mum, but I will do a proper Marley picture later *giggles*
Jinty – Highland Pony – Pencil sketchI posted this on DeviantArt yesterday, then forgot to blog here too. Whoops!
I’ve always found it harder to draw cobby type horses and ponies. When I was at school I spent hours sketching and painting dainty arabians because they just seemed to move like magical creatures. I learned to ride on Highland ponies, and adored them, but I’ve never been able to draw any of the stocky native breeds.
So, for some practice and a challenge I drew this portrait of my biggest (and certainly fattest!) Highland pony, Jinty. She’s a challenge just in the gold highlights of her mane and the dark stripes and spots on her face. There’s a real satisfaction in making myself do something out of my comfort zone, if I get really brave I’ll draw the other side of her so I can get her full mane drawn. I pity the 4 horses she stole hers from, I really do!
I’ve been playing around with my scanner and installed Simple Scan – it makes a lovely clean pencil scan, so I’ve just had to touch the levels and change to greyscale in Gimp. In Jinty’s case I also moved the sketch into the centre of the paper so there’s a clear margin for framing. But I’m much happier bringing my pencil sketches onto the PC now it’s just a quick tweak in Gimp. No excuse for not scanning in my sketches now, and very useful when I start working on cartoons from my sketches.