More Inktober and a sketch

So far so good with my drawings for #inktober. Without quite intending it I seem to have a series going. It seems to be a series in 2 different ways, first; all of the main drawings are of plant materials of some sort, nuts, fruit, and leaves. Second I have continued drawing my little helper as the actual executor of these drawings.

All those hours of life drawing from models is coming in handy. I won't say that my figure looks really lifelike, but I think I am getting most of the proportions correct, and the poses mostly realistic. I am not quite sure I can come up with 31 different poses though, so that will be just another of my challenges for this month.

I don't know why I keep using vertical text where the letters are kept vertical, doing it that way throws the spacing between letters off and really isn't very attractive. But once I start inking there really isn't any going back so Apple above is vertical/vertical. Still if frames the apple so in a way it works.

Above are the leaves and some of the seeds of the Lindon tree. They have pretty yellow/green flowers in spring and this odd shaped leaf that both the flowers and the seeds grow from. I am sure there is a more technically correct term for this, but I am not in the mood to go chasing it.

The other change I made for this drawing was to make the plant material a different ink color. In the WetCanvas pen and ink forum another participant in Inktober was doing his drawings with brown ink, and I rather liked the look of it. Since I have 3 different bottles of brown ink I thought it might be fun to add a different color to the mix. Since I am continuing to draw my helper in black ink, it makes for a interesting contrast, which I rather like. So starting with this drawing the central drawing is done with different shades of brown ink. The one above was Daler Rowney FW Acrylic ink, Sepia.

I was in Boston on the 6th, visiting the MFA and then walking along the Fenway and picking up more nuts, mostly acorns but also some sort of a Hickory nut. The Hickory isn't the shag bark that I am familiar with but there are several other species of Hickory that can grow in the northeast and the nut I am finding is from one of those. One day I will actually pin it down. In the meantime I picked up this oak leaf and thought to use it as my subject for the the 6th.

The ink for the oak leaf was another Daler Rowney FW acrylic, Antelope brown.

The above is a graphite sketch I made of a fellow bus passenger while on route to Boston. I have played with it in Photoshop to darken the graphite which was otherwise a bit light, no other changes though. 

We had beautiful blue sky's on Tuesday, the day I went into Boston. This is a photo of the Fens, a bit more water in them since last weeks rain storms. Trees are just starting to hint and the fall change. We had the warmest Sept. on record last month and I think it has delayed the fall colors.

Above is the fountain in Copley Square. The last time I was in the Square in Sept. they were working on the fountain and it was dry. I wasn't happy because I was trying to get a good photograph in Copley for the 2016 Boston calendar I was working on. Course I was there at the wrong time of day also, This week I was there in the afternoon, which is the best time to photograph the square and the church, esp. on a sunny day. I expect they will be draining it again soon so I made this photo while I had the chance.

That is it for today, I do have a drawing for the 7th but am saving it for my next update. Per usual comments are welcome.

Starting Inktober 2015

Well, it isn't the best drawing I have ever done, but I did it without any preliminary work, so I don't think it is too bad. I had totally forgotten about the Inktober Challenge until I saw a posting on facebook which reminded me. It was still early enough in the day that I could take the time to make the above drawing.

If you are interested you can go HERE to read about Jake Parker and the Inktober challenge. It is still fairly early in the month so if you want to join/start there is still time. Most people post to facebook, or flickr or wherever, if you do a search on #inktober you should pull a lot of images.

Not quite sure where the idea for this came from, but I am finding it a lot of fun to continue with the theme of a small helper making my drawings for me. Just the kind of thing I need to ease me back into some more serious works.

For the first drawing my helper was just doing letters, reminding me of the Inktober challenge, for this second drawing it pulled out a couple of acorns and drew them. The drawing shows it caught in the act of shading the nuts. Well that is the story I am telling myself anyway.

For this drawing I first did a pencil drawing and added the ink afterwards. The result is a much more polished drawing and I am much happier with it. All of these challenge drawings are being done in one of my smaller (5 x 8 inches) sketchbooks and I am using either my technical pens or my Copic Multiliner pens, mostly the .1 and .03 tips, or the 0 and 00 technical pens.

Above is my drawing for the 3rd, this time I started with a White Pine pine cone, and my little friend is viewing the results of it's efforts. I haven't decided if it is male or female which is why I am trying to be gender neutral.

Again I made a pencil under drawing for this one and then did the inking.

We have had clouds and rain most of this past week so I haven't been out with the camera since last weekend. This photograph is from last Sunday's visit to Daniel Webster, I think the plant is Wild Lettuce but I may be wrong, all of my plant ID books are still packed away so am guessing. It is a tallish dandelion looking flower. I just liked the image of the sun lit seed head.

That is it for today, hopefully I will be continuing with my Inktober drawings so should be updating the blog again soon.

It is Fall, new Sketches mostly ink

It is fall, the autumn equinox has come and gone. We have had a full eclipse of the moon, which I mostly miss because I fell asleep, and only woke up when it was over and the moon was shining brightly again, oops. Ah well I have seen lunar eclipses before and hope to again in the future, just didn't see this one.

Still not a lot of drawing or other art work, except for continuing work on the curtain fabric for the living room, which I don't really count. But I have been doing a bit more sketching so today's update is all about those.

Above a pencil drawing of a candle in one of my glass candle holders which is sitting on a bookshelf. just practice since I am so rusty. Needless to say I can see lots wrong with it. Have to do more of this type of drawing to get back into the groove.

When I was last in Boston walking along the Fenway I picked up this half nut shell, the meat of the nut had been eaten, probably by squirrels, but I though the remaining shell looked interesting so I brought it home with me to sketch. I have no clue what the nut is, maybe Blackwalnut, though I don't think so. For some reason I tend to think this is some kind of European/English tree/nut that was planted along the Fenway. The whole nut reminds me of Hickory nuts, but much larger so that isn't what it is.

Drawn in one of my sketchbooks with either one of my technical pens or a Copic Fineliner.

On another walk in my local city park I collected a mushroom, some acorns and a white pine pine cone, more fodder for my pen. Above is the quick drawing I made of these articles. Again done in my sketchbook with my technical pens. I didn't bother to made much of an arrangement, maybe another time as I am collecting more objects. Can you tell I love found objects.

A page from one of my sketchbooks. Obviously I didn't pre-plan this page and there is no over all design to it. But I wanted to show it because of the seed pod that is featured. I picked this pod up in Boston on the same visit that I picked up the nut. I have no clue what species the tree it came from is, not one of our normal natives that is for sure and I don't recall ever seeing this type of pod before. It was planted in the yard of one of Northeastern University buildings so could be from just about anywhere in the world.

The pods are a bit fragile, I picked up two but only one remained whole, So the drawing of the open pod with seed is from the one that broke apart. I should have collected a leaf, but was on my way home and thinking more about that then identifying the tree at some point. I did make a photograph of pods hanging from the tree and will post that, if anyone knows what it it please leave me a comment, thanks.

Mystery tree with seed pods,

And finally my final image, made last week during a walk in my local park. The trees are just hinting at the fall color change, with a few, here and there, showing more color, but this bush obviously knows the season. Just liked the colors here, red, blue and green.

That is it for today, per usual comments are welcome.