Five-Day Black & White

11/10/14 India ink, twig, Canson XL 140 lb. paper

As if I don’t have enough sketching challenges this month!

On top of NaNoDrawMo and my own self-imposed addition of a delayed Inktober (not to mention my weekly homework for Sketchbook Skool, which I’m behind on), my friend Gary just invited me to join the 5-Day Black and White Challenge on Facebook! For the latter, participants post one monochromatic photo daily for five days and also invite another photographer to participate each of those days. (Gary changed it up a bit by inviting me to sketch my entries.)

It’s hard for me to pass up any kind of sketching challenge, and I realized that sketching in ink only is the same as sketching in black and white, and they all count toward NaNoDrawMo, so I’m not really adding to my homework pile. So I accepted his challenge!

Here’s Day 1: a tree on the next block of Northeast 81^st from our house, just west of Fifth Northeast. I’ve sketched this maple several times in all seasons, most recently when it was fully leafed in April. I usually sketch it while facing west, so today I sketched it from the opposite side. Asymmetrical, it always seems to grow in a slightly northerly direction. True to form, it’s completely bare on one side but still has a few leaves hanging on on its north-facing side.

11/10/14 Platinum Carbon and Noodler's #41 inks,
watercolor, Zig markers

Of course, I can’t resist sketching a tree in autumn with color, so I sketched it again from the same spot. (At least if I get challenged to a five-day watercolor challenge on Facebook, I’m ready!)