Most of you will never have heard of #intober. It’s a simple idea started by Jake Parker, a
Utah artist, nearly ten years ago – a
challenge to make an ink drawing every day during the month of October. Then you are supposed to post it on the
internet and label it #inktober and #intober 2017.
Usually inktober is well along before I realize the
challenge has started again. This year I happened to notice at the correct
time. I decided to give it a try. I knew right away I wouldn’t take the time to
scan and post all 31 drawings, but I’d at least try to ink a drawing every day.
Now I’m nearly at the end of the month. I think I missed two days, but there were
other days when I did more than one.
Trying to keep up with inktober was easy for me, but not
totally satisfying. I hardly did any
painting all month because there was always another drawing that needed
inking. It is acceptable to include
color with the ink. I did a couple of
those, but mostly I just inked.
I did make a point of different types of ink drawings … and
will give a brief comment about a few of them.
The little deer mouse at the top of the blog was my first sketch. The day inktober started was an especially
busy one for me, but late in the day I flipped open my laptop and drew
him.
Day 2 I had lots of time.
Dale and I parked next to these egrets and cormorants and I had time to
sketch all but the last inch of crosshatching right on location. I quit at that point and finished later
because by the time I reached that the end of the sketch I really needed a
table to work on. I had been balancing my sketchbook on my lap, scrunched in
the front seat of the car.
This is another field sketch, but I did peek at the back of
my camera, and I sketched it lightly in pencil before inking. I wanted it to look spontaneous, but still be
fairly well proportioned.
I photographed this great horned owl peering out from some
willow branches early in the month. This
one I tried to draw carefully from the computer after I got home.
Washington lily -- drawn from a photo I took several years
ago. I wanted to work with a wide range
of values so I used the water soluble ink again.
Today’s drawing is the pair of double crested
cormorants. Sketched in the field nearly
three weeks ago, but today I inked it.
Again I used water soluble ink. I
love how I can wet this ink with a ‘water brush’ – (a plastic brush that holds
water in its handle).
In case you are interested, these are all done with one of
my two fountain pens. One is filled with
Platinum Carbon black ink and is permanent.
I can paint right over it without the ink smearing. In my second pen I keep water soluble
ink.
