Tuesday, October 31, 2017

#InkTober2017 Final Review: Lessons Learned

10/22/17
Happy Halloween and happy end of InkTober! Are you sad that it’s over  or relieved?

As I mentioned in my second trimester review, I began InkTober this year with a bit of trepidation about being able to keep up with daily ink sketches while also working on my time-consuming graphite class exercises. But on most days it was a relief to go out and do small, quick sketches from life for InkTober instead of labor-intensive graphite drawings from photos.

On some busy days, though, I admit that I wanted to skip it (and once I almost forgot until fairly late in the day) – but I didn’t. I have often told people who say they don’t have time to sketch that it doesn’t have to be a huge time commitment, so I decided I would simply practice what I preach. Except for one I did at the Funko sketch outing, none of my InkTober sketches took more than 15 minutes to make.

10/24/17
While it’s not part of Jake Parker’s original InkTober initiative, as long as I’m participating in the project, I like to give myself a personal goal. I didn’t stick with ballpoint pen for the whole month as I had originally planned, but I did stay with the second part of my goal: to practice my hatching skills. That, too, was tempting to skip. Without InkTober, I regularly make small brush pen sketches in Field Notes notebooks, so it would have been easy to fall back on a familiar tool and habit. But except for a couple of sketches, I managed to include at least some hatching. As the month went on, hatching became easier. I started to really appreciate how effective hatching can be in economically showing the direction of a curved surface.

The most surprising outcome of InkTober 2017 is that I unintentionally developed a bit of a theme: cars! Although they are no longer the sketching nemesis they used to be, and they appear frequently enough in my day-to-day urban sketches even without InkTober, cars and I have never been on friendly terms. On busy days, though, I often found myself squeezing in a quick sketch between errands or appointments, so it was easiest to draw whatever car was parked nearby. Interestingly, cars turned out to be ideal for hatching practice: They’re made of curving, hard surfaces with lots of challenging, irregular shadows! Since I typically would not choose to sketch ordinary cars on the street as primary sketching subjects, I got some much-needed practice. 
10/25/17

Overall, despite the challenges, I had a great InkTober (see all my sketches from the month in this Flickr album)! How about you?

10/23/17

10/31/17

10/26/17

10/21/17

10/27/17

10/29/17
10/28/17

10/30/17

8 comments:

  1. Yes, I can see that cars are no longer your nemesis. Congratulations on finished Inktober!

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    1. Thanks, Kate! Cars and I are not exactly BFFs, but we're cordial. ;-)

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  2. I managed the whole month, and the likes on Instagram I received from kind strangers as well as you really inspired me to carry on. I naturally would use pencil, so using pen has been very different. I bought some Derwent Graphix ink pens and have really enjoyed using them too. And my Copix pens I think will be deffo used in future. I've really enjoyed thinking of an angle to the prompts. My sketches have never taken more than 15 mins - and I think it shows as they are very naive, but the fun has been to get something recognisable that quick. And now I have a little notebook of sketches. And I've enjoyed your cars very much.

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    1. I hope you carry on long past Inktober! That's one of the biggest benefits of doing something like Inktober -- it creates a habit for doing it indefinitely.

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  3. Congrats on a great Inktober! I'm glad you were able to practice something you had wanted to try, your hatching. This was the perfect opportunity to get that done. I hadn't realized you had done a car theme, but did notice a lot of cars appearing. lol That's something I need to practice too and I look for excuses to include them in my sketches. Great job and final review!

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    1. Thanks, Joan! It was a lot of fun as well as rewarding.

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  4. Hi Tina: I really like your idea of focusing on something. I ink so much that inking something every day was hardly a challenge. I really wanted to feel as though I had grown. So if I do it next year I think I'll pick a focus like you did .... Maybe a whole month of using brush and ink .... or doing people. I hardly ever tackle people. ... or mammals. I do a lot of birds,but not so many mammals. .... or bugs! ...or? ... or?

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  5. Exactly -- that's how I felt! I use ink all the time, so I wanted to have an additional challenge. Will look forward to seeing what you do next year!

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