More Inktober Drawings
Here are some more of my animals from my “Life of Pi” that I did for Inktober. These are the blind contour and find drawings for animals and Days 4, 5, and 6.
#inktober #inktober2019 "#lifeofpianimals #penandink
Start of Inktober 2019 Drawings
I love the idea of Inktober - 31 days of drawings done with ink. Using watercolor or colored pencil is allowed but the idea is to do mostly with ink. I never seem to get my way all through the month drawing every day, but I try. There is an official list of prompts below.
Official 2019 Inktober Prompts
For my Inktober challenge, however, I came up with the first 31 or so animals mentioned in the book Life of Pi by Yann Martel. All of those were acquired by page 14 in the book. There are lots more animals mentioned!
I may or may not get to completing this challenge but I have done the first 10 days. A drawing technique that I like to use when approaching a new subject is to do a blind contour drawing of the picture. This means that while I have my pen on the page, I only look at what I want to draw and don’t look at the page. Blind contours are great for getting practice seeing. Drawing is all about drawing what you see and not what you think you see.
Here are my first few inktober drawings with their blind contour drawings next to them. It’s kind of fun to compare the blind one with the later sketch. Sometimes they match really well, sometimes I’m channelling my inner Picasso!
#inktober #inktober2019 #lifeofpianimals #penandink
The October Newsletter is Available!
Welcome to my art world! I try to publish my newsletter every couple of months. This edition has some images of student travel journals, urban sketching classes and events, quince, a traveling quilt, and upcoming workshops. Please sign up for my email list on my Contact page if you haven’t already done so and you will automatically get my next newsletters. If you would like to read earlier newsletters, they are also available on my About page.
Urban Sketching Class in Downtown Redmond
I had on my City of Redmond Arts Instructor hat on last Saturday and led a group of four enthusiastic people in an introduction to Urban Sketching starting at Redmond’s Downtown Park on a beautiful sunny day. After meeting and greeting and a bit of an introduction as to what urban sketching is - drawing on location and drawing what you see - I had them warm up with their first exercise. I gave each person a viewfinder to use to help limit their focus and do some thumbnail sketches with, orientated both horizontally and vertically. I showed one of the cool things to do with a viewfinder on a thumbnail. It becomes like a frame and sliding that frame around the thumbnail helps to clarify if the subject is in a good spot for a later sketch or needs to be moved to a different spot. It’s amazing how helpful a thin piece of cutout cardboard can be! I shared a number of strategies of ways to approach sketching and then it was time to let the students loose. We moved to the train signal sculpture and I had them try sketching. One student gave me the challenge of how to draw a foreshortened perspective of the sculpture.
Pot Pie Heaven!
Logan selling her pot pies from her business Pot Pie Factory
I’m a visual storyteller and one of the things I like is to do is to draw food. I was at an Illuminating Women event recently in June where there were a couple of cooking demonstrations for that month’s theme. Both chefs were interesting and the sample salads they made were tasty. But when that was over and Seattle-based chef Logan Niles brought out her frozen pot pies to sell, that’s when my interest in drawing the scene was piqued! Logan is very personable and very clearly connected to and proud of her products. All the pot pies in the boxes were lined up and so attractive. I liked how each one was handmade and each has cut outs of pastry to identify the type of pie. It was clear that Logan has lots of experience with these because although the pies were different because of ingredients, all were regular in size and similar in shape. I admire the hours that have been spent to master that technique.
I got a couple of pies to try at home. They were pre-baked then frozen so all I needed to do was finish the baking to heat and brown them. And when I got to eat mine, yum! I had fun putting together this collage of Logan and her pot pies together. If you’re interested in trying out her pot pies, Logan sells them online through her company Pot Pie Factory.
The August Newsletter is Out!
Welcome to my art world! I try to publish my newsletter every couple of months. This edition has some pictures from recent travels, news about upcoming workshops in August and September, a suggestion for an interesting web site to follow which includes Japanese cats in hats felted from their fur, lots of links and many, many sketches! Please sign up for my email list on my Contact page if you haven’t already done so and you will automatically get my next newsletters. If you would like to read earlier newsletters, they are also available on my About page.
Jantzen Beach Carousel Horses
I was lucky enough to be able to go to Portland, OR last month and visit a conservation and restoration studio (MPF Conservation) where some historic carousel horses from the Jantzen Beach Carousel were in-house being evaluated for restoration. There were about 15 of them there. So interesting! Here are a couple of my takes of two of the horses. I penciled them there and inked them at home.