#inktober2017-The First Seven Days

Thanks to all of you who took the time to respond to the survey. It was very useful. While I will not be able to roll out a greeting card line in time for Christmas, I may (or may not) do so in the future. But I thank you for all your feedback-always!  

Seven days in and I am struggling to keep up. Granted I was out of town for the first two days and then sick the next three-but I still managed to make small ink drawings. What’s your excuse?? Ha, Ha! I know your out there just drawing away for Inktober. Here are my drawings for the week. This mornings was done from the sktchy app inspiration photo and the Inktober prompt “shy”. It literally took all morning. But I had the time and drawing (and painting) all that grass was meditative. I will be trying to explore some new things in the coming weeks.

Or maybe not new things, just revisit some techniques or tools I don’t normally use. This week I used the brush pen on the lamb. Not a fan. I see people do wonderful things with black brush pens, but the carbon platinum pen I used is fine nibbed and the brush pen completely overwhelmed the drawing. Lesson learned. I will use it again soon and see if I have better success. One thing I’m challenging myself to do is use tools I don’t normally use. Next week I’m dragging out the dip pens and we will see how that goes! I like a spill here and there with watercolor, but ink, not so much. We will see what happens now wont we??

Speaking of spills. As I leave you for the week, I’d like to leave you with a little metaphor. I had dinner with a friend a while ago during which we talked about Inktober. My friend reminisced about her first ink drawing in high school and how when she was quite a way into the drawing she spilled the jar of ink all over the drawing. With the teachers help, she cut the spill from the drawing and mounted paper to it and continued to finish the project into a nice drawing. As we talked she said insightfully, “I was young and thought it was a disaster. I thought this meant it was ruined.

Today I understand that spills happens and I would just incorporate and work around the spill and make it a part of the drawing. The metaphor being that life is like a drawing. “Spills” will happen, but age and wisdom teaches us how to work around them and make the best of them.” (Paraphrased)  I challenge you to embrace the “spills” in your art and put them online. As you can see below, I’m not cranking out masterpieces here. I felt the brush pen “ruined” my lamb drawing. But I went with it and worked around it by using color to distract from the heavy ink nose and eyes. So grab a tool you don't normally use and give it a go! 

Along those lines, what “spills” do you have in your life right now that you have to work around? We all have one (or more) but as my wise friend said, we learn to make them into a part of the drawing of our life. Life is art, and art is life. Have a great week!