Still Inktober

I am posting 4 #Inktober drawings today. Catch up for what I didn't post the other day and since I really haven't been doing any other drawings than these it makes sense.

Above, I am not totally sure that the leaf and berries are from some kind of Ornamental Cherry I think. The fruit certainly looks like some kind of cherry so unless I can otherwise identify this popular city landscape tree I am going with it. Course it will be my luck that this is actually some kind of crab apple tree. The spring flowers are white, but it does bloom before it leafs out so...  I collected the berries while I was in Boston, but the leaf I used I picked from a tree planted along Main Street here in Brockton.

All drawings are done in my 3 x 8 inch sketchbook, starting with a pencil sketch and then inked. The brown ink for the above was Winsor Newton Nut Brown.

I had purchased a small bunch of bananas at the store (I like have a piece of fruit with my lunch and bananas are easy) and though that I should use it as a model prior to starting to eat them, three is a better number for an image than two or even one. Obviously I don't have any banana leaves handy so it is just the fruit today. They are resting on some new to me shelves that are just zinc coated wire racks. I went back to the sepia Daler Rowney FW Acrylic ink for the Bananas, and used paynes grey ink for the wire rack.

I have been walking to and from the library. Since the days are getting shorter my habit of walking in a park after leaving the library isn't working, and I need the exercise. So I have mostly stopped driving to the Library and walk it instead. I try to vary my route a bit even if it does make the walk a bit longer.

I picked the leaves used above on one of those alternate walks. The plant was growing in a yard behind a fence but a few leaves and seed pods had escaped through to the sidewalk side. The pods had dried a pale cream color, and I didn't feel too guilty about picking a couple and taking a set of leaves. I have no clue what kind of beans they are, they are white (dried) and sort of look like lima beans except smaller. I opened one of the pods for this drawing.

Ink used here was again the Sepia Daler Rowney ink, along with my black technical pens or sometimes one of my Copic Multiliners, usually the .1 or the .03.

I am not happy with my helpers face, it looked OK in the pencil drawing but it didn't ink as well as I would have liked, I sort of wish now that I hadn't bothered to even try to add features. Ah well Inktober is for experimenting so I guess it is live and learn.

Picked this leaf on another of my walks, from a Concord grape vine that is growing mostly wild in the front yard of a home. Since the grapes were allowed to dry on the vine the current occupant obviously isn't tending to the vines or the grapes so I have no guilt over taking this small bunch to be my drawing subject.

I went back to the Daler Rowney FW Antilope Brown for this drawing, except I did use a bit of black in the middle of the dried grapes.

It is a good thing for me that Inktober is October and not November as I would be hard pressed next month to keep coming up with different reference materials for my subjects for 31 days. I suppose there is always the grocery store, but there are some veggies that I don't eat and I hate to waste food.

Time for a couple of photographs, trees are finally starting to show some color here in Southeastern MA. This maple is turning yellow with a bit of orange and red.

I have mostly given up on trying to photograph butterflies for the season. The last part of this summer was so dry that there just weren't a lot of flowers around for them. But there are still some butterflies flying around, above is a female cabbage white butterfly. Spread wings and not nectoring so maybe she was trying to warm up after a cool morning. The cabbage white is the one type of butterfly that can be photographed from early spring to late fall, the have one of the most extensive flight times of all our NE butterflies.

That is it for today, having to go hunting subjects for my Inktober drawings, wish me luck. In the meantime comments are welcome.