#InkTober2016: A Theme Emerges

10/22/16

Three weeks into InkTober, I think my personal objective of making more sketches from imagination is finally taking hold. When I first started, I gave myself the theme of “adult coloring book,” thinking that would be general enough that I wouldn’t have to be tied to any specific subject matter. If I were sketching things I see in my daily life, I think that plan would have worked well. But it didn’t take me long to realize that when I’m sketching from imagination, having a wide-open theme with no specific subject is actually harder, not easier. It became clear that other InkTober participants already knew this; I am seeing several working from very specific themes that probably make it easier for them to begin their drawings each day.

10/16/16

As it turned out, a theme emerged on its own when the cartoon rabbit I had drawn sporadically the first two weeks started reporting on our daily weather conditions last weekend. I’m going to continue letting Weather Bunny report the weather when he wants to, and when he doesn’t, he can report on his lunch!

In addition, I’m discovering that the rabbits I drew as interpretations of photographs and the sketch I did yesterday at the Bruce Lee exhibit are another type of drawing. They are not fully imaginative, nor are they drawings from life. They’re somewhere in between in that I start with a visual prompt but have to let my imagination do some of the work while capturing nothing but the essence in a fluid brush pen line. Challenging in a very different way, this type of sketching is very enjoyable, too, and I plan to explore it further.

See all my InkTober2016 sketches in my Flickr album.

10/18/16

10/21/16