2. bunny, trying to make it fluffy was not as easy as it seemed.
06 bunny
3. squirrel, using salt and splattering to make some texture. The salt almost worked maybe it was too dry, it looks interesting though.
07 squirrel
4. fuchsia, a quick stylised version as we were away from home. Trying to keep the momentum going.
08 sketchy fuchsia
5. frog, another quick one, the colours ran together in places to make some interesting merges. If I’d been at home I probably would have started again but there a few good bits I like so I’ll call it done.
09 frog
Nine down twenty two to go, hopefully I’ll make to the end this year.
Thanks so much for taking the time to stop by. till next time, have fun
This week I have been drawing and painting peonies. I had drawn a quick sketch in my sketchbook and thought it would look OK on a card; to be honest I prefer the sketch, it has much more life to it.
The sketch was drawn with a fountain pen, no pencil guides, just quick and simple. It was drawn over some failed thing in grey ink so there is a grey splodge underneath the drawing.
The flowers were all very similar as I transferred the drawing by holding it against a window (poor man’s light box)
I drew it out on watercolour, painted it and realised I’d forgotten to put in the shadows, adding the shadows later lifted the colour. Fail 1.
Trying again this time putting the shadows first which worked but the paper developed some kind of weird bloom? Sad because I liked this one. Fail 2.
The next one is unfinished. I put in the shadows and the first layer then stopped. Maybe I’ll finish it maybe not, I like the softness of it.
Unfinished peony watercolour
Time to change everything up. I spotted the coloured brush pens and wondered how they would work on watercolour paper (previously I’d only used them on cartridge paper.)
They are very saturated and I really liked the way the colours blend into each other on this paper, have to do more with these.
A peony drawn with brush pens
The colours in the scan look blown out as reds don’t scan well, the photo shows the card and gives a better view of the actual colours. I took the photo in the hope it would show the gold paint, it didn’t really.
Red peony card
I know it looks really dull painting the same thing over and over but I learn as much about myself as I do the tools and techniques so it’s very useful.
Thanks so much for taking the time to stop by. Till next time, have fun
Week 2, still doing the Inktobers but not every thing is postable or is the beginning of something and continued the next day.
Honesty 1 – I splashed some ink around to make a background. Earlier in the year I found an honesty plant at the back of the botanical gardens. Every time I visit I take a few photos to sort of document it’s growing season. It has small purple flowers then the pods develop quite quickly.
Backgrounds – experimenting with the ink, dropping colours onto the paper and moving it around. Salt also works on these inks which was a nice surprise. They’re all a bit grungy and drippy but it made some interesting effects.
Honesty 2 – this is the honesty a little later in the season. Love the autumnal colours in this one and the salt effect. It’s one of the backgrounds made earlier in the week.
06 honesty
Happy frog – I like this little frog, he looks very cheeky. I discovered some of the inks are translucent so don’t cover other colours well. In some parts I tried a little white ink under the colours to make them stand out. Maybe I should have changed his colour to make him stand out more.
07 happy frog
Sitting frog – another frog; a lot of frogs in my head at the moment apparently. It’s painted on another of the pre-made backgrounds.
08 sitting frog
I don’t think any of these are beautifully rendered but I am learning a lot about the inks properties and hopefully how best to use them.
I haven’t managed posting every day the main problem I have is I need to be sitting at the kitchen table to use them so I can spread out and not have ink spilling everywhere, so everything has to be moved and put away, brought out and set up. It’s quite a palava.
I am looking forward to more experiments next week.
Thanks so much for taking the time to stop by. Till next time, have fun
The honeysuckle that drapes itself over the fence every summer is now in flower. The scent is amazing and I’m not the only one that thinks so. Every insect in the garden is hovering around the flowers pollinating like mad.
I find honeysuckle difficult to draw, the long vines(?) growing over each other all vying for the best spot on the fence, so I’ve picked out a just a few of the stalks to draw.
The honeysuckle above was painted with watercolour and outlined with a fine liner. I love the way they fall down over the fence then climb up again towards the sun.
The youngling and I decided on a trip into town this week, we hadn’t been out for ages so we thought a spot of lunch and a little shopping would be a nice treat. We walked past paperchase (a fancy stationers) and there they were; Lamy fountain pens and they were half price!
I chose a pink one the reason being, if I drop or misplace it, a shocking pink pen is more likely to stand out, hopefully before I put my foot on it.
So yes, I bought one with a box of cartridges all for the princely sum of £10.50, bargain.
Now to test out my new fancy fountain pen.
First I made a line drawing and used a water brush to pull out ink from the lines, it worked really well. The pen is nice and smooth and I like the ink colour.
Honeysuckle drawn with a Lamy fountain pen
Next I painted some honeysuckle the same way as the top image this time using the Lamy pen for the outlines.
Honeysuckle watercolour and outlined with fountain pen & ink.
Comparing this with the first image there is more variance in the lines which I really like and if I need a finer line I can turn the pen over and use the backside of the nib.
I think I’m going to have lots of fun drawing with this new pen.
Thanks so much for taking the time to stop by. Till next time, have fun x
The lovely freesias are wilting now but I managed to draw them a little more with ink and watercolour.
The pink note book is finished, sad but true. I enjoyed drawing on that paper more than I thought I would and loved some of the effects I managed to create.
I’m now working in an A4 sketch pad, it has slightly off white paper and the cover says its suitable for all dry media (pencils, pastels, charcoal etc.) so the first thing I use on these pages is ink of course!
There was still red ink in the fountain pen I’d used a few weeks ago and wanted to use it up. The paper is quite porous so the ink wouldn’t pull out from the edges with a water brush, on to plan B.
I found a brush, mixed the ink with a little water on a dish and painted the ink loosely over the petals.
Red freesia in red ink
I really like the effect and decided to paint the other bunch.
I bought two bunches, one red and one purple. Its interesting to see that different colours have different shapes. The purple flowers are mush more compact.
Purple freesia in red ink
After testing the paper with ink I wanted to see how it would react with watercolour.
It won’t take any watery washes of paint but the dry brushing is nice and unlike the ink it doesn’t bleed through to the other side of the paper.
Red freesia with watercolour
Unfortunately the purple flowers had wilted by this time so no watercolour of them this time.
When everything was scanned into the computer I played around with the inky flowers to see if I could make a small posy out of them. The background is pink because I wanted to keep it in the same colour family, a kind of tone on tone effect. (see top image) I always mean to paint the like this then end up with lots of specimens social distancing themselves across the page.
I’m sure I’ll get the hang of it one day.
Thanks so much for taking the time to stop by. Till next time, have fun x
These birds are called northern bald ibis, they are very strange looking birds. At first glance they all look like they are wearing little masks but no, unlike other birds they have no feathers on their heads and faces.
Long black feathers grow from the back of the head and fan out around the head fluttering in the breeze.
The rest of the feathers are black too although when the sun shines the feathers flash green blue or purple depending on the angle at which they are sitting.
Brynn the look-out
These ibis live at the zoo. Of course we haven’t been to the zoo for ages but I have a few photos taken previously so I’m using them as reference.
Miriam the peeved ibis
Ibis spend most of the day high on the rocks at the back of the enclosure; there is a bridge next to the enclosure and it is just in line with the top of the rocks. It’s nice to stand on the bridge watching them communing with each other they really are are quite comical.
I don’t mean to draw in a cartoony way but that seems to be the style in which I draw and after looking at the drawings for a while the birds all seemed to have their own little personalities so I gave them names.
Abigail the ibis
After a few quick lines in pencil they were drawn with a brush pen filled with grey ink, the details filled in with a black pentel brush pen.
The zoo is open at the moment; winter hours are short and a visit needs to be booked for track and trace plus spaces are limited. Hopefully next year we’ll be able to visit more.
Thanks so much for taking the time to stop by. Till next time, have fun x
I’m Still keeping up so far, very much liking the colour of the blue ink and having lots of fun experimenting.
Day11 – bird. (above) I had no ideas today so after a quick look through my sketchbook found something that might look good together. It’s nice when the sketchbook becomes useful for not only practising but generating ideas and too.
Day 12 – bat. A little bat fluttering around some bindweed although in some countries the internet says they are called moon flowers(though I’m not sure its the same plant?)
I drew the bat and flowers and thought it looked a bit disjointed so I put the black circle as an after thought. It seems to pull everything together better.
12 bat and bindweed flowers
Day 13 – poppy. I love the colour of blue poppies (although you cant tell the colour from this drawing). I really enjoy drawing the curly petals.
13 blue poppies
Day 14 – blossom. A little bird sitting amongst the spring blossoms. This was drawn on watercolour paper, bockingford I think, and was a very different experience from the printer and cartridge papers I’ve been using.
14 bird amongst the blossom
Day 15 – Chameleon. Two baby chameleons sitting on hibiscus flowers also drawn on watercolour paper. I’m testing this ink on as may papers as I can. The texture of the paper really shows through on this one
15 chameleon on hibiscus flowers
Day 16 – butterfly. I’ve seen these flowers many times in the butterfly house at the zoo, I didn’t realise they were another type of hibiscus. (learning and growing hehehe) They look so beautiful and delicate; the butterflies are always fluttering around them.This one is sort of stylised as I’m still trying to work all the frilly petals out.
16 butterfly on hibiscus flower
Day 17 – snail. I’m not a lover of the slimy hoards but they are fun to draw. The tiny mushrooms were drawn from a shaky photo I took at the zoo last year. This one turned out much better than I thought it would.
16 snail
We are over half way through now, some were a little rushed but it was a fun week of drawing.
Thanks so much for taking the time to stop by. Till next time, have fun x
Is it October already? Yes, it’s that time of year again “Inktober”
To be honest I wasn’t really feeling it this year. There is so much going on and lockdown fatigue is taking it’s toll. I manage to draw more days than not but sometimes I have to push myself. I won’t learn to draw if I don’t actually do any drawing.
That’s the good thing about being here on my little blog, I need something to post. So being here and seeing all of you lovely people keeps me accountable, one of the many things I’m thankful for right now.
I had no parameters set but had recently bought a new bottle of ink, a pale purple/grey colour. I’ll play and experiment with the new ink, a pentel pocket brush pen, a white jell pen and probably some fine liners with various white papers. I want to find out what this ink will do and how best to use it.
I’m not using prompts unless I see something that appeals and generally they don’t.
Day 1 – fish. (see above) Did I say no prompts? Well I like fish so OK I did the first one. I tried to combine it with lotus flowers. It’s the first time using this ink, it’s really pale and at its palest doesn’t scan well. (Learning and growing hehehe) . Antique printer paper (the kind that had the perforated holes down the side, (using it up slowly)
Day 2 – cyclamen. I have a cyclamen plant that is stubborn and fights my terribly un-green fingers. I used it as a model for the leaves and photos I’d taken last year for the flowers. I like the shading on this one. New printer paper.
02 cyclamen
Day 3 – beetle. A half decent idea that almost works. Maybe I’ll come back to it, I can think more about this now it’s on paper and out of my head. I like this colour a lot. 200Gsm coated card
03 beetle
Day 04 – chrysanthemum. Normally I paint chrysanths free hand but I thought it would be fun to draw some, it was. Then I decided to make the background black! Ran all the ink out of my brush pen. It does look sort of cool though so worth it. 200Gsm coated card.
04 chrysanthemum
I posted the first one on the 2nd October so I’m a day late, I may make it up or not, I’ll see how I feel. Getting started is the hard part so now I’ve started it shouldn’t be to difficult to keep the momentum. The hardest thing is deciding what to draw.
I’m looking forward to seeing everyone’s Inktober’s this year, I think that’s the most fun part.
Take care of yourselves and thanks so much for taking the time to stop by. Till next time, have fun x
05 bleach blossom 2 
Sunnyfae 