Inktober 2019 Roundup
- Emily
- Jan 28, 2020
- 5 min read
Updated: May 9
Hello my Freaky Darlings!
I know it’s three months late, life happened, don’t judge me! 😝
I have a few loose ends from last year that I want to tie up and I’ve chosen Inktober 2019 to be the first as it was the last major project I ...*cough*... completed.
This was my second attempt at the annual October artists’ challenge. I wanted to see if I could improve on the previous year’s attempt. I feel I did better in 2019, because in 2018, even though I produced 15 drawings, only ten of them were cohesive and I was happy with - the first five I initially did were naff in my opinion (check out my gallery for the drawings - scroll to the bottom 😉). In 2019, however, I made 13 cohesive pieces that I was pleased with from the start.
This time I planned ahead and had a good idea of what I wanted to do. I thought of doing several images per page in my sketchbook, and connecting them all with a ribbon that also displayed the prompt words.
Here is the rundown, or roundup, of all the drawings I created with a bit about each one and pictures of the full spreads showing how the images connect across the sketchbook pages:
All the pictures were drawn with Sakura Micron fineliner pens in black, and coloured in with Derwent Inktense pencils - I’m rather fond of these 😁
Day one was "Ring".
My brain came up with a faery ring. The scene is supposed to be at night with glowing mushrooms and fae dancing around. In hindsight, I do think that colouring the blue outside of the hexagon border was a mistake, and makes the piece look odd compared to all the others.
Day two was "Mindless".
I thought a brain in a specimen jar would be amusing.
Day three was "Bait".
I figured a simple worm on a hook would be good, I didn't want to over-complicate too many of my drawings. Sometimes, the simplest solution is the best one.
Day four of Inktober was "Freeze".
I wanted this one to look like it had frosted over, forming little ice crystals everywhere. Notice how the colour changes in the lettering on the ribbon to give the idea that it's being frozen because it's too close to the ice.
Day five was "Build".
Another one where I decided to go obvious, but thought it might be fun to play with scale and maybe break the fourth wall a little(!?) by drawing my own hand interacting with the bricks.
Inktober day six was "Husky".
I didn't want to do the obvious with this one. I fancied something creepy too. This was my attempt at some husks and a really bad attempt at some puns! Also, another kind of fourth wall break with the monsters interacting with the page, as if they're really going to climb out of the book...
Inktober day seven was "Enchanted".
This one is a simple self portrait. I wanted to give the illusion that I was under a spell, or enchanted, with my eyes whited over and magic runes circling my head.
Day eight was "Frail".
I wanted to keep things simple again. Thought I would try and have some fun by attempting a trompe l'oeil effect with the peeling paper revealing cracked plaster underneath.
Inktober day nine was "Swing".
This piece has two meanings for me; there's the swing of the baseball, or rounders bat and also the idea of a "swing vote" with the ballot box full of marked papers. The image of the bat breaking open the ballot box mayyy have been a slight nod to the political situation in the UK at the time... 🙄
Day ten was "Pattern".
A repeating pattern of the fascinating double helix design of DNA which contains the patterns for life on this planet.
Day eleven was "Snow".
Again, I didn't want to go the obvious route with this prompt. No cold, wet, white stuff here! I thought the static, from an untuned, old-school CRT television was a little more... outside the box. 😏
And boy, did all those tiny circles take forever!
This is where I decided to have a break for a few days. I definitely needed it! Unfortunately, I didn't manage to really get back into it and I only achieved two more drawings before my mind wandered off to find something more shiny.
Inktober day twelve was "Dragon".
An obvious one here. I wanted to make it an homage to one of my favourite artists, Roger Dean, so drew a slightly different version of the beast from the cover of Magnetic Storm 😄
I also thought it might be fun to have the dragon set fire to things on the page, hence the singed end of the ribbon it's holding.
And finally, Inktober day thirteen was "Ash".
I found it apt that the next prompt word after "Dragon" was "Ash", and I couldn't resist making it look like the dragon had flamed the picture I was trying to do!
I guess this challenge ended in a flaming mess... 😏
I don't think I will be attempting Inktober again, it takes up an awful lot of time away from my own work. Plus, sometimes, when I'm not fully invested or interested in something I have the attention span of a squirrel!
I understand the idea behind the challenge is to get into the habit of drawing and sharing your work as often and as consistently as possible. So, that is the lesson I will take away from this and try to apply it to my own work.
Thank you for stopping by, hope to see you again soon.
Much Love and Blessed Be
Emily xxx
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