Week 2 of Inktober 2017

Pen and ink drawing of a zebra

Week two has been great fun – especially seeing all the amazing art others are doing. It really inspires me to keep drawing and developing my own skills.

Ewe and lamb - Inktober day 8
Two of my parents’ sheep with attitude. The spotty lamb was a fun texturing challenge too.

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Poppy sketches in ink and watercolour

ink and watercolour sketch of some poppy flowers
ink and watercolour sketch of some poppy flowers
Poppy sketches

Some practice sketches of poppies. A5 pen and ink drawing with watercolour.

Hyacinth illustration – ink & watercolour

Top down illustration of a hyacinth plant and flower bud, ink drawing with watercolour paint
Top down illustration of a hyacinth plant and flower bud, ink drawing with watercolour paint
Hyacinth bud – ink and watercolour

From above this hyacinth looked fun to paint, so I decided to use ink and watercolour together again. I worked with a limited palette – leaf green, ultramarine and cadmium yellow.  Everything came together exactly as I’d hoped which is always satisfying. Continue reading

Chaffinches in watercolour

Watercolour painting of two birds - a pair of chaffinches on the ground

A pair of chaffinches were visiting our street this week so I decided to paint a picture of them.

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Squirrel practice in pencil and watercolour

Painting of a squirrel's head in watercolour.

A page from my watercolour sketchbook featuring assorted red and grey squirrels. Below that are some of the pencil sketches I did first. These pages have led to a running joke about my “squirrels per day” count.

Paintings of squirrels in watercolour paint.
Red and grey squirrels in watercolour on A5 paper.
Pencil sketches of squirrels
Some practice pencil sketches that later turned into watercolour practice.

Goldfinch Sketch in Watercolour pencils

Sketch painting of a goldfinch bird using watercolour pencils

A little family of 5 goldfinches were feeding and exploring outside my window this morning. They were rummaging around in some rough ground, one was outside my window playing peek-a-boo. They’re small birds but you can see they have a lot of attitude. They wandered around for a few minutes then as a group they just walked off round the corner. I managed to get a photograph of one finch and drew a quick sketch with watercolour pencils.

Sketch painting of a goldfinch bird using watercolour pencils
Goldfinch sketch with watercolour pencils

Painting Apple Blossom with Lily

A small dog sits alongside a sketchpad with a painting of some apple blossom

My dogs are usually nearby when I’m drawing or painting. I make a cuppa, they get some chews and we all settle down together. I have dog beds all around the desk so my feet are always cosy. Sally also pokes her way onto the seat behind me. And sometimes Lily gets on the desk. There is a lot of mischief at first – Lily likes to play with my stuff, flinging the odd pen or bit of paper. Then she’ll settle down for a snuggle and look out the window.

So here we have a work in progess shot with Lily “supervising”

A small dog sits alongside a sketchpad with a painting of some apple blossom
Lily supervises my painting of some apple blossom.

And here’s the finished picture.

Watercolour painting of some apple blossom
Apple blossom in watercolour

The iRat

Cartoon of a rat dragging a toy rat onto a charging pad. Drawn in ink with watercolour pencil. A6 sized.

For an art theme of energy, I present the iRat. A rat grimly struggles to drag his battery-powered mate onto the charging pad for a re-charge.

You could read all sorts into this – maybe I was trying to say something about Apple device battery issues, or predicting some grim society where even the rats need a virtual buddy. Truth is, I just had this image pop into my head with a rat dragging his mate by the tail, started laughing and doodled it.

This is a tiny A6 sketch using watercolour pencils and ink on some card. The colours came out softer than I’d have liked, but they still work.

Cartoon of a rat dragging a toy rat onto a charging pad. Drawn in ink with watercolour pencil. A6 sized.
iRat – a rat grimly drags his mate onto the charging pad. A6 watercolour pencil on card.

Happy little shelves

Illustration of two shelves with books and assorted cute decorations.
Illustration of two shelves with books and assorted cute decorations.
Bookshelf watercolour illustration (A5)

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.