End of Inktober in sight.

Inktober is starting to wind down, only 5 more days until it will be over and it will be November. I am basically taking it one day at a time and so far so good. All of today's drawings are animals, either a cat or a dog as the case may be. Just haven't felt like going back to leaves and the elf. Course I am not only using different images as reference am using different styles for the drawings depending on the animal portrayed and what I think fits it.

Above is one the stray cats I occasionally see in my neighborhood as my next door neighbor feeds homeless cats in the evening. He used to feed them during daylight hours and I was able to get more photographs but I think someone complained and he has switched to feeding them after dark so I rarely see them any more. However the other day I did see this cat in the yard and was able to make a few usable photographs of it.

All the drawings are done in my 8 x 5 inch sketchbook, for the one above I used my 0 (.35) Rapidograph technical pen for all of the lines. Oh one other mention before we move on to the next image, all of these were first done in pencil and then the pen work was done either over the pencil or to it.

The above drawing of a poodle was done from another of my reference photographs. The State parks I walk in allow dogs, on leashes supposedly but depending on the park many who have obedient dogs will walk them off leash. I don't usually mind, unless the dog is a jumper and has recently been swimming or the paths are wet because of rain. Anyway sometimes I try to make photographs of some of the dogs I see.

For the poodle I used my Copic Multiliners the .05 and .1 tips. What I did different here is I filled in the background to my penciled lines and allowed the darkness there to define the edges of the dog, so there are very few outline lines in the above drawing, most of the additional lines are actually shading lines, not outlines. I am fairly pleased with how this one came out. The dog even looks a bit fuzzy, and if you know the breed they have very curly hair and are a bit fuzzy.

I really liked this photo, the dog was interested in something on the ground, and I think this is a pointer so tracking by scent is part of what they do. For this drawing I went back to the Technical pen, the 0 (.35) for the entire drawing. I also outlined this dog, since it had short slick coat I thought using an outline would convey that feeling. I will also say that I like the drawing.

For yesterdays I went back to a cat, this one in motion. It was another of the neighborhood strays, they really don't like strangers to approach them, and I am a stranger so. For this photo it had taken off across the street, but I was for once ready with the camera and was able to make a couple photos.

I used Copic Multiliners for this, in this case the .03 and the .5. The .03 for the line work on the cat and its dark patches and the .5 for the shadow which I wanted dense and dark.

To me all of these images have a very illustrative feel to them, fairly simple drawings of animals with clean line work and some shading.

Sunday started out with some drizzle (we could really have used some rain, but we will take what we get) but it started to clear toward mid afternoon so I went out for a walk in my local city Park. Still though there was just a bit of sun it stayed mostly cloudy, so the colors above are not as bright as they should be. Yellow, orange and red, with the understory still green, a typical New England fall image.

I don't usually post the same photo in two different places on-line, but I love this photograph, dead fern fronts in among some bushes whose leaves had turned bright red. the contrast of colors makes the fronds sort of glow.

That is it for today. Per usual comments and/or questions are welcome.

More Mid Month Inktober

The month is moving on, and so far so good with keeping up with the #inktober challenge. Here are more of my drawings to date.

I used a Box Elder leaf and a group of seeds for the above drawing. This is a combination of black Ink, brown Ink and watercolor. Black ink in Copic or Technical pens for the figure and lettering, brown ink with a dip pen for the leaf outline and the seeds, and the wash on the seeds is ink. I used Sepia Ink for this one. The green color of the leaves is watercolor, applied quickly and with relative little water. I was quite pleased with how this came out.

This one is a bit in a more traditional pen and ink style, no ink or watercolor washes son this one. The background of the maple leaf is strictly pen work, parallel lines. This is the classic fill for pen and ink, and requires a fair amount of concentration and patience, neither of which I have a lot of any more. Still I had enough to do the leaf. The brown ink was Winsor Newton Nut Brown and I used a dip pen for this. Black ink again was my technical pens with an assist from a Copic Multiliner.

Leaves and seeds were picked up in my neighborhood.

For the 21st I just couldn't face another leaf. I will probably go back to them before the end of the month but I really needed to do something different after 20 days. So I looked through my stack of reference photos and picked one that shows a squirrel on a brick wall.

This is from a photo I made myself. I tend to wander around the world with a camera, and on this day I startled a squirrel which must have been relatively young, it really wasn't quite sure how to get away from me, it ran in one direction, changed directions then started to climb a wall, fell off, ran a different direction, went back to the wall tried to climb again, fell off again, and tried a third time and finally managed to get a grip and actually climb. I watching these antics, got the camera ready and when it stopped for a moment on the wall to check me out I made some photos.

For this piece I did lay it out first with pencil then using my 0 (.35 mm tip) technical pen I drew it again in ink. The lines are basically scribbles, but the scribbles have given it a more spontaneous feel than it would have had if I had used more traditional techniques. It isn't a masterwork, but it is a fun piece.

Again I wasn't in the mood for more leaves so I drew another animal. This is my Sister's cat. I can't recall if I made the reference photo or if it was part of a group she sent me. Again there is a pencil under drawing for this, Accuracy counts with cats esp. their faces. I have her sort of floating in space I know, but I deliberately didn't anchor her to the background.

For this piece I used various commercial technical type pens, There are actually 2 browns and a black, the browns are Copic .05 Multiliner, and a Prismacolor 005 liner,  the black is a .05 Copic Multiliner. Not totally her, but pretty close, she is a pretty kitty. I didn't want to draw an inked outline around her, most of her outline is defined by either the background or her dark fur, and occasionally some shading.

More fall follage, again a maple tree in full color. Won't be long now until all the leaves are gone and we will be left with bare tree's.

I am not sure what these flowers are, they are growing in a neighbors front yard, and as you can see are a very pretty pink. I tried for several days to get a good photo of these. But I was mostly trying at the wrong time of day. Yesterday I was out in the early afternoon and finally had enough light to get a good photograph.

That is it for today. Comments are welcome, I would to know which of my Inktober drawings you like the best.

Mid Point of Inktober

We are now more than half way through October and so far so good as far as my keeping up with the #inktober challenge goes. I have been doing one ink drawing per day. Well mostly, some days I just do the drawing part and then ink it in in the morning, but I am staying up to date so far so I am not going to quibble too much.

All drawings are being done in my small sketch book (5 x 8 inches, approx) most starting with pencil drawings and then being inked with a combination of dip pen, technical pen and my Copic Multiliner. The figure work is from my memory/imagination while the plant materials are all from reference, usually the actual object. So any errors you see in figures is because I don't have a real image in front of me.

I used the leaf and a seed pod from a Red Bud tree for the above, that little brown dot is actually one of the seeds of the Red Bud. Antelope brown ink was used for the plant material. Dip pen for the outlines and a brush for the wash. I do water the ink down quite a bit before brushing it on the drawing.

For the pears I did things slightly differently. After the initial pencil drawing the bowl and the pears were outline with a dip pen and Sepia ink, but for the color I went with watercolor paints entirely. I am relatively pleased with how this one came out. It would have been better if I had used watercolor paper for a base but still I like the results of this one.

We have a lot of Beech trees in MA. The woods/forest are full of the native species, and many cities and towns have specimens of various European Beeches growing in yards. These leaves are from a neighborhood tree which is an old Copper Beech. The tree has an enormous trunk (several feet in DIA) so I feel that it has to be over 100 years old.

Doesn't matter if the trees are native or European they all have these slightly prickly seed pods that contain 3 triangular seeds. I have drawn an empty pod and one seed to go with the leaves above.

Native Beech leaves turn yellow in the fall and sometimes the leaves will stay on the tree until next spring when the growth of the new leaves forces the old to fall. In the woods the ground underneath a grove of beech trees sometimes looks like it has a yellow carpet from the fall of leaves. Can you tell that I am very fond of Beech Trees.

I went back to the Antelope Brown for the leaves and seed pod above.

I bet you are wondering where this drawing came from. It is actually my ink drawing for the 18th. I was so tired/bored of drawing my Elf yesterday that I decided I deserved a break. These 3 mushrooms are from a photograph I made earlier in the summer and I decided they would be a good subject for yesterdays drawing. I used my Technical pen (.35mm tip) for this, making simple shapes and then shading, and then cross hatching the background to add value contrast. I didn't do a pencil sketch with these, I didn't see any reason to actually. Not amazing, but acceptable and I enjoyed the break from the Leaf/seeds and Elf series.

Closing with a couple more fall photographs. We have had some semi cold nights (no frost here, but there was elsewhere in the State) so I am not sure how much longer these flowers will survive, such a pretty yellow they brighten any yard.

The maple in the above photo is in one of the city parks and as you can see showing its colors while most of the other trees are still quite green.

Well that is it for today per usual comments are welcome. I hope you are enjoying my Inktober drawings for the most part I am enjoying making them.