I like to work on a tan sketchbook in January – although I was too busy with nieces and our weekly zoom coaching sessions to do the full Tanuary challenge on social media. We had a lot of fun, even so.
I challenged the kids to use different surfaces, including cardboard pieces and talked about charcoal, pencil, crayon, pen etc. It was good drawing practice for all involved.
It is Inktober! This year I am taking the course from Sktchy: Inktober2020 Portrait Challenge. I am not planning to stick to only portraits, but I am going through each day’s course and using what I am learning.
My main focus this month is learning portraiture. Portraiture has terrified me my entire art life. It is time to lay that ghost.
Day 1 of the classes I learned how to create ink delivery systems out of sticks from the back yard and dipping ink. It was so much fun! I thought Ruth Bader Ginsberg’s image lent itself well to this style. This was such a freeing experience.
6 of my nieces have joined me this year. We zoom once a week to look at what we are doing and I give them one assignment a week. This week was to do a blind drawing and then I also have to do it. I forgot how much fun some of these fundamental drawing exercises are! I hope they can cut loose and just enjoy their pens.
This is Notch – I think she may be a first time mother. She has at least 2 babies so she got bold enough to come up to the deck. It seems they get hungry about this time of year. I also see them in the deep winter when the snow is thick. Otherwise, they only visit at night. How do I know? My tomatoes growing on my second story deck keep disappearing.
I watched a Cooper’s Hawk wrestle with a huge stick that had a smaller one hooked to it. When he finally got them untangled, he ended up with the short stick and appeared quite disgruntled about it. He tossed it down and left, at that point, and went up into the tree and started wrestling with another branch. It was very entertaining.
I decided to take an old Inktober image and practice my greens on it. Pine Hills State Nature Preserve seemed a great place to start.
I am working on the eagles as my practice subject since I am planning on a larger painting for a nephew. So… more eagles…
A combination of things (including Christmas commissions) added to the 2nd half of the month not being a daily, but I still did quite a few, as well as some gesture sketching on the busy days.
Inktober was fun, and I quit worrying about the prompts, but did get a couple more in such as #15 Legend –Â our own local celebrity cat – Pirate Cat.
I hope to keep up the weekly sketching (not daily – way too much happening in the next 2 months, but I do not want to lose that momentum of sketching. It is excellent for studying a subject and getting to know them.)
Above- our local Cooper’s Hawk, stalking out feeders.
A bit of fan art for James and Margaret – a pair of California Ravens I follow on Instagram and Facebook. @thedailyjames
I love the little Black and White Warblers we see each year. And below is a Summit Lake Bald Eagle – reference photo by Patrick D. Conner, one of our local birders on the Facebook page, Indiana Birdography. You will be seeing more of these in various mediums, as I am practicing to do a watercolor for my nephew.
This particular week I did a couple of prompts but mostly simply practiced mostly from my own photos except on the two specified. I have to retrospectively
#7 Enchanted was some quick gestures of a Carolina Wren that enchanted me on my hike at Ritchey Woods over the weekend.
#8 is Frail – I was busy illustrating a comment on Facebook, so skipped this one and drew the hippie chicken above. However, I kept thinking of our frail ecosystem. Maybe I will revisit this word.
# 9 – did not use a prompt – Whitetail Deer Photo reference – John Baughman – https://www.facebook.com/JustJohnsNature/
#10 no prompt – Blackpoll Warbler Photo reference – Jining Han posted on Indiana Birdography
#11 – no prompt – one of our bunnies that live in our wild wood. I called him Notch.
The remaining day was spent sketching with a pencil. I worked on a child’s face and also on Christmas ornaments over the weekend. I did do some quick gestures in ink that are in a random sketchbook somewhere.
Flexing My Wings 