Turtle Card

Hi there, how are you?

This week I’ve been making a birthday card using the turtle from Octobers Inktober ideas as a starting point.

Sometimes I use the actual Inktober art and adhere it to a card base but this time I wanted to see how it would look in a more realistic colour.

The original (below) was OK, there were a few things I wanted to change with the drawing. Most of the Inktober are drawn and completed in a day, getting it drawn quickly and posted is as much as I can deal with. Details get missed or glossed over.

I drew the original image out again in a sketchbook and painted it with watercolour to test the colours. This gave me a rough idea what colours I wanted to use (and the ones I didn’t).

After a quick sketchbook re-draw I tweaked the colours a little and was happier with these choices.

This is cartridge paper, the colours are not too vibrant on this paper but it’s enough to work things out.

turtle sketch 2 — Turtle sketch 2, a bit scrappy but it does the job.

As you can see the colours on the card at the top of the post are a lot more vibrant. This is in part due to me using a photo (the scan looked very washed out which can sometimes happens with blues,) and the use of cotton watercolour paper. Cotton watercolour paper always makes the colours sing.

The lighting is the sun shining low in the sky through the trees behind me.

The thing I like about Inktober is (given a good month) I have lots of ideas, admittedly not all good but enough to spark lots of other ideas to use throughout the year.

Thanks so much for taking the time to stop by. Till next time, have fun x

Inktober 2022 Week 1

01-yin yang fish

Hi there, how are you?

October again, already! Time to play with ink again and participate in Inktober.

I bought some new ink (seriously, like I need more ink!) had to make up the postage and they found their way into my basket hehehe.

Hopefully his year there will be experimentation as I play with the new inks, and maybe some old ones and this will lead to generating a few new ideas

1. yin yang fish. (above)

2. cosmos flower and a butterfly, blew the background with a straw.

3.daisy and a bee, a little asemic writing around the edge. A fancy way of saying it looks like words but it doesn’t mean anything, just squiggles.

4.cherry blossom, a wash of ink with bleach painted onto the surface. I’d seen other people do this with fountain pen ink and wanted to give it a try. It’s a bit messy and smelly but it’s an interesting effect.

I’m not following prompts, unless they appeal to me, I’ll just be plodding along at my own speed to see what happens and if I’m lucky I’ll manage to finish the whole month and have some fun at the same time.

Thanks so much for taking the time to stop by. till next time, have fun x

Inktober 2021 – Acrylic Ink Week 2

05 fresh honesty 2021 inktober — 05 fresh honesty

Hi there, how are you?

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.

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.

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.

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

Inktober 2020 week 1

Hi there, how are you?

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.

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

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.

I posted the first one on the 2^nd 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

Inktober 2019 Final Week

Hi there how are you?
Inktober is done, happy November!

It’s been an interesting and very enjoyable month, I liked the way brown paper looked when other people used it and wanted to see if I could get a similar effect.
I have used tons of pieces of paper drawing, sketching and working out ideas, hopefully it’s had impact on my drawing abilities.

1. iguana – (above)I took a photo of this iguana at the zoo, it was a bit blurry but good enough to draw from.

2. iguana – once I’d posted the iguana in instagram I realised it wasn’t quite done and needed more work, so I used my brush pen to give it a dark background and lightened the rock a little with a white gell pen, I like it a lot more now.

3. pigeons – this one made me chuckle, it was actually a photo of pigeons eating seed but once I’d drawn them it looked like two ladies having a cheery chat hehehe.

4. magpie – I love the way this one came out, I should have drawn more magpies, they look great on this paper. This was day 31 the last day of inktober

5. testers – although inktober was finished I had missed one day in the middle so I used some of the little test pieces. They were 3×3” off-cuts from the bigger pieces of paper. The two little bees were drawn with gell pens, I was missing colour and I hoped I could use the gell pens but meh, it wasn’t quite working for me. I used watercolour for two of the hummingbirds; it worked a lot better than I thought it would.

I didn’t use the prompts this year; I haven’t found a way to incorporate them into my drawings without turning out a lot of art that I feel no connection to. I have enjoyed other people’s interpretation of them though.

I enjoy the inktober challenge; somewhere in the middle I always get that low feeling of “how many more is there left to do!” If I can push through that it’s usually OK.

I never know how this month will impact on the future arty stuff I do, it’s always fascinating to see it crop up when I’m not thinking about it.

If you participated no matter how many you did congratulations and here’s to next year.

(too soon? hehehe)

Next week hopefully I will be using colour again, yay!

Thanks for taking the time to stop by. Till next time, have fun x

Inktober 2019 Week 4

Hi there how are you?

It’s Week 4, almost there now, just a few days to go. I managed a drawing every day this week so am patting myself on the back for sheer determination. The challenge is quite enjoyable but deciding what to draw is a lot of work.
Had I followed the prompts I’m sure it would have taken even longer because I found the words really hard to interpret this year.

1. Dancing crane – (above) a single dancing crane (there was only room for one on the page) I used a big red sun in the background. The paper wrinkled a bit because the red ink was very thin.

2 + 3 humming birds – I drew a hummingbird in the first week; he was just taking flight and a little puffed out. The next two hummingbirds are in full flight, I love the shapes their little bodies make.

4. parrot – I drew this one from one of the photos I had taken of some green parrots at the zoo. We were looking up into the trees so it’s a slightly strange angle.

5. hare – they have loner ears and legs than rabbits with that startled stare that means they’re ready to run.

6. kingfisher –Usually I would draw them sitting but I wanted to draw them moving so this time it’s going for a dive. I like the way this one turned out, it has plenty of detail but it’s not too fussy.

7. tree frog – took a photo of this little guy a few weeks ago, he was just hanging around.

Note to self, not all papers are created equal. I’m using paper recycled form the inside of last years Christmas wrapping and most of it has been good quality but this one was far more absorbent and didn’t really suit the technique I used, also it drained all of the ink out of the pen!

Although I have found the prompts this year hard I have seen some fantastic interpretations by other people, maybe I need to try harder to make them work, something to think about.

Here’s a link for week 1 , week 2 and week 3 just in-case you’re interested.

Thanks for taking the time to stop by. Till next time, have fun x

Note: If you want to know more a link to information on inktober and what it is all about is here.

Inktober 2019 Week 3

Hello peeps how is it going?
It’s week three of inktober, wow this month is going fast!

So far I’ve mostly managed to keep up, there’s been the odd “I don’t know what to draw” moment and at the last minute I think of something. I could use the prompts but found them so uninspiring so I’ll just plod on as usual.

1. Fish amongst the lily leaves – (above) there’s the beginning of an idea here that maybe I’ll look at later.

2. Horned owl – I’ve drawn a similar owl before on white paper, it’s interesting to see the difference the toned paper makes.

3. Hornbill – I love these cantankerous birds, the zoo is trying to breed them but the hornbills have other ideas.

4. Monarch butterfly – three butterflies fluttering. It was fun to draw them with the wings in different positions.

5. Penguin – at the zoo we have Humboldt penguins, they love nothing more than showing off to the children swimming right up to the glass.

6. Sparrow – I know I drew a sparrow last week but I have taken loads of photos of them and I really like drawing them. Who knows maybe I’ll draw more sparrows’ hehehe

7. Dancing cranes – there was a program on TV about Japanese wild life, when I saw the cranes I decided I needed to draw some hehehe. I’m sure had I thought of it I would have painted some with my Chinese brushes last year. “Future me” may try this, once inktober is over of course.

I like most of the little drawings I made this week even with the phaffing about deciding what to draw. I am starting to miss colour now and can’t wait to get the watercolours out again, “Soon my pretties”.

Here’s a link for week 1 and week 2 just in-case you’re interested.

Thanks for taking the time to stop by. Till next time, have fun x

Note: If you want to know more a link to information on inktober and what it is all about is here.

Inktober 2019 Week 2

Hi there, how are you?
Another week of inky drawings on brown paper.
It’s been interesting so far, where do the dark darks go and just how much white is too much? I used a grey pitt pen for some of the shading and hatching for other bits.

1. octopus – (above) swimming in the water, I might have gone a little mad on the white gell pen here but overall I like it

2. frogs – blue poisoned dart frogs to be exact, beautiful and deadly. They looked a little sad sitting on the page so I gave them a background and rocks to sit on.

3. fish – high-fin cardinal fish are so pretty in aquariums, all of the white parts glow in the tank lights.

4. turkey – not the most beautiful birds to draw but definitely one of the more interesting. I used the official prompt “pattern” for this one with all of the fancy feathers.

10 Turkey pattern — 10 Turkey ( prompt pattern )

5. crab – I’m not sure what type of crab this is, In the photo it was purple and very pretty.

6. next – (move along please nothing to see here) I made a birthday cake and card on this day and there was no day left over for inktobering *sad face*

7. sparrow – I do love a sparrow and the photo of this one was so cute. also we had been out for the younglings birthday dinner and eating afore mentioned cake (yummm)

So that’s how inktober is going at the moment. I’m not stressing over the missed days, if I have time I may make the numbers up or not, its still good practice either way.

I’m not following prompts, unless they fit in with the things I’ve drawn but it is fascinating to see how other people have interpreted the prompts in their own interesting and out of the box ways.

Thanks for taking the time to stop by. Till next time, have fun x

Note: If you want to know more a link to information on inktober and what it is all about is here.