Inktober 2021

[K-2]

Thanks so much for your kind thoughts for my interpretation of "collide" @AnasaziWrites & @Erica McPhee -- My favorite part of Inktober is seeing how everyone else interprets the prompts!

All of the drawings are small - because I can draw smaller drawings quicker.  They don't require as much intensive planning, they're a bit cheaper on the ink & paper budget, the small scale encourages me to experiment more, and they keep Inktober moving along for me.  Each one is a monochrome - using only one ink per drawing (plus water and maybe a little bleach) also keeps things moving along.  They're all around 15.2cm x 11.5cm (6 x 4.5 inches for those using imperial measure)

18. Moon

[Erica McPhee]

Beautiful!

[AnasaziWrites]

loop

[K-2]

@Erica McPhee - thank you for your enthusiasm and your kind words!
@AnasaziWrites - what is the medium on the "loop" skywriting drawing?  it has wonderful texture!

19. Loop

The writing is done with Moon Palace vermilion sumi ink.
The drawing is done with Birmingham Pen Co. "Allegheny River Twilight"

[AnasaziWrites]

@AnasaziWrites - what is the medium on the "loop" skywriting drawing?  it has wonderful texture!

@K-2
They are essentially fancy crayons, part of a set pictured below with pencils, markers, and watercolors (in a drawer somewhere--I've never attempted much with watercolors). Even on smooth paper, they give this type of textured look. They do smear, which can be done intentionally for a softer appearance. I needed to seal this work to allow it to be scanned without smearing all over my scanner. That would be a messy cleanup.

Nice loop. Love seeing your interpretations.

[AnasaziWrites]

sprout

I have no idea what I'm doing with watercolors, as you can plainly see. I'm posting this "effort" with the view of encouraging those (if there are any) who might feel their work is not good enough to show publicly on this thread. So, if there are any shy posters, give it a shot. We're all friends here.

[K-2]

@AnasaziWrites - That's a nice mixed media set - I used to do a lot of work with oil pastels (your fancy crayons), but haven't worked with them for a while - mainly because they are so messy, and require a fixative as you say.

What a good go at the watercolors! Watercolors are a very challenging medium, and really require a certain amount of surrender to the serendipities of the form.

So it's great that we're both putting out "not best" work here, and I really appreciate your encouragement for everyone to post -- Inktober is all about becoming more comfortable with the everyday work.  One of my art professors once asked our class, "Should you try to paint ONE MASTERPIECE or rooms and rooms full of regular paintings?"  It was a trick question.  And even if you never get the masterpiece you still have rooms full of work.  and it's okay for half of it will be below average as long as you have a lot of it.

My text for "Roof" did not cover me with glory, but it was what I did, so there it is.  And I'm actively using Inktober here to practice showing my kind of mediocre copperplate.  So please let me add my encouragement to yours.  After all, there's still ELEVEN more days of Inktober to go!

20. Sprout

The text is an embellished Insular half-uncial using Troublemaker "copper patina" ink a Mitchell Witch pen no.1 and a Nikko G nib for the embellishments.

The drawing is my eldest sprout in Rohrer & Klingner's ausziehtusche Sepia ink (from a photo taken this spring)

[AnasaziWrites]

So it's great that we're both putting out "not best" work here, and I really appreciate your encouragement for everyone to post -- Inktober is all about becoming more comfortable with the everyday work.  One of my art professors once asked our class, "Should you try to paint ONE MASTERPIECE or rooms and rooms full of regular paintings?"  It was a trick question.  And even if you never get the masterpiece you still have rooms full of work.  and it's okay for half of it will be below average as long as you have a lot of it.

This whole Inktober exercise is, for me, getting out of my comfort zone (Spencerian, written with pointed pen and ink. If Spencerian were a planet, it would be earth--where I'm comfortable--and watercolors would be Pluto) in a friendly, non-judgemental environment--the Flourish Forum (thank you Erica). I love the idea of doing rooms and rooms full of work. By definition, half will be below average, but then, half will be above average too, and among them, maybe a masterpiece will be done. Monet didn't just go out in a field and paint a masterful painting of haystacks one day. He did some 1800 or so paintings, many haystacks, many times, many "failures" and many gems. In fact, failures may be the wrong word. There is value in even the most unsuccessful attempt. One learns what doesn't work, or at least, what doesn't get you to where you want to be. Hmm, might be a topic for a thread.

The drawing is my eldest sprout in Rohrer & Klingner's ausziehtusche Sepia ink (from a photo taken this spring)

I give big credit to anyone who can draw a face that actually looks like someone in particular. Nicely done.

[AnasaziWrites]

fuzzy

[Zivio]

So it's great that we're both putting out "not best" work here, and I really appreciate your encouragement for everyone to post -- Inktober is all about becoming more comfortable with the everyday work ...
.
.
.
This whole Inktober exercise is, for me, getting out of my comfort zone (Spencerian, written with pointed pen and ink. If Spencerian were a planet, it would be earth--where I'm comfortable--and watercolors would be Pluto) in a friendly, non-judgemental environment--the Flourish Forum (thank you Erica) ...

This is all so very wonderful, and inspiring! I regret there isn't a "gobsmacked" button on this forum to properly record my reactions ... and regrets that I may inadvertently not have at least clicked "like" on each and every entry! I'm truly gobsmacked by all. 

The entries here give me pause to rethink something I'd once posted about not really having desire to pursue anything other than Spencerian for my everyday correspondence. Perhaps some day after it feels more like Earth ...

Sending admiration to all and gratitude for making life more wonderful!

Karl

[K-2]

@Zivio - Thank you so much for your kind thoughts and encouragement!  I hope you'll join us for the last 10 days of Inktober - using the word prompts is a great way to practice.  Did I see that you're working on Spencerian?  You can ask for feedback on your form too.  @AnasaziWrites is quite the expert!  @Erica McPhee truly has created an incredibly welcoming community offering a very safe and inviting space for creative experimentation.

As for rooms full of work... Have you ever seen Clouzot's documentary film "Le mystere Picasso"?  In it, the artist creates canvass after canvass, and they aren't very good paintings.  But he keeps painting more of them, and then more of them.  He's relentless in his work, and that's what makes him a master of it.

At two-thirds of the way through Inktober, the drawing challenge is feeling relentless, but then when it's all over, I always feel like I've come up with a few good ideas, a few techniques to follow up with, even one or two nice drawings!  Or at any rate, I have 31 drawings that I didn't have last month.

@AnasaziWrites - what a clever interpretation of "fuzzy"!  And what an apt analogy about feeling more at home with certain media.  I think we're opposites - watercolors and broad edge calligraphy are my "earth" and pointed pen work is a bit farther out for me, maybe somewhere in the asteroid belt.

In that spirit, and in the spirit of experimentation, I put pointed pen to wet paper to make it....

21. Fuzzy

[AnasaziWrites]

open

Certainly learned something with this one--the scanner will not pick up silver ink well.

Adding a second image--a photo (vs. scan) of "The Open". Seems to work better picking up the metallic inks. Click on it to enlarge.

[K-2]

Such tidy outlined lettering with the negative space, @AnasaziWrites - quite difficult to get those lines so clean.  (metallics in general don't scan well, but silver might be the worst). What a clever idea for "open" too.

The lettering - I've been experimenting with how bleach reacts to certain dye-based inks.  Some of them give off a beautiful "neon" effect, so I thought I'd go for the classic shop sign.

I have to say that I wracked my brain over the drawing - but I chose an optimistic interpretation.

22. Open

[AnasaziWrites]

@K-2
Love the neon effect. Do you add the bleach to the ink after you have penned the letters? Is the background already dry?

Optimism is most welcome these days.

[K-2]

@AnasaziWrites - To get that neon effect, I put down a layer of dye-based ink and let it dry (fountain pen inks are marvelous; pigmented inks & traditional watercolors do not react).  Often, I'll wet the paper, and then drop some ink onto it and let it spread on its own.  Then I dip my pen (or brush) directly into liquid laundry bleach and apply it to the field of dried ink (I like the "no splash" bleach, which have a thickener in them so they stick to the nib better).  That's also how I did the lettering for "spirit" back toward the beginning of the month; the drawing for "spirit" also features bleach effects on the bottle, glass and background (varying the concentration of the bleach to achieve some of the color effects).  "Crystal" - the very first prompt - also uses bleach on ink for both the text and the drawing; to get the round features on the snowflake, I dipped a pipette into the bleach and used it blow bubbles onto the paper.  These days I actually prefer to paint with fountain pen inks over traditional watercolors, following the lead of Nick Stewart [https://nickstewart.ink/] whom I greatly admire.

23. Leak

Putting myself out of my comfort zone with the copperplate calligraphy, which I continue to work on - but I'm clearly a broad-edge specialist.  Doing "art effects" with it helps me feel more adventurous about showing it - but hey, whatever it takes, eh?

The drawing is in honor of my dearly beloved, badly behaved, incredibly leaky Desiderata fountain pen with the ebonite body & feed, that fits a G nib.  Like I actually poured ink out of the cap when I took it out to draw it.  I've written about my joys and tribulations with this pen in the thread on fountain pens with flex nibs.