InkNaNoDrawMo

11-2-14 India ink, twig, Van Gogh watercolors, Stillman & Birn Beta sketchbook

Yesterday was the first day of NaNoDrawMo, the sketcher’s answer to National Novel Writing Month, or NaNoWriMo. The objective of NaNoDrawMo is to make 50 drawings during the month of November. Last year I didn’t find out about it until several days into the month, so at least I could start on Nov. 1 this time.

Last month was Inktober, a similar challenge to make one ink drawing a day during the month of October. I didn’t find out about that until a week after it began, and I was a little unclear about the objective – could we combine ink with other media? or were we to use strictly pen and ink only? – so I decided not to participate. But since I’ve committed to NaNoDrawMo, I’ve decided to give myself an additional challenge: Make 50 sketches in ink during November. (I admit, almost every sketch I make involves ink of some kind, so I realize that’s not much of an additional challenge. But I’m giving it to myself anyway.) I’m calling it InkNaNoDrawMo.

One more additional challenge: Inspired by Mattias Adolfsson’s Sketchbook Skool lesson, I'm going to try to do some sketches from imagination, even if they’re not exactly "imaginative," like basic trees.

11-1-14 India ink, twig, watercolor, Canson XL 140 lb. paper

Yesterday I had an all-day commitment immediately followed by an evening commitment, so all sketches were done from my car during breaks and in a notebook from imagination (surreptitiously with markers while supposedly listening to other people talk). Today it’s raining, so I sketched our neighbor’s cherry tree through a window. It had turned bright orange practically overnight.

By the way, Nov. 7 is international Fountain Pen Day. Since I use fountain pens for almost every kind of writing and sketching all the time, I don’t know what I would do differently to celebrate except maybe shop at GouletPens.com, which is having a great special all month – 20 percent off all ink samples – as well as giveaways. Oops, I guess I shop at Goulet all the time, so that’s not much different, either. Oh, well! Go shop at Goulet and celebrate Fountain Pen Day.

11-1-14 Platinum Carbon ink, Tombow marker (from imagination)

11-1-14 Noodler's No. 41 ink, Tombow markers (from imagination)