A Satisfying InkTober

 

10/31/26 Green Lake Park. A fun experiment in mark-making.

Another InkTober is in the books!

10/26/26 I took the reference photo of this neighborhood church during a golden
hour walk a couple of months ago. I'm pleased by the way the pale yellow marker caught the 
light that had initially caught my eye. I pass this church nearly every day on my walks, but I'm
usually not attracted to drawing it. It was only that light that made it interesting.

With just a few exceptions, I did all sketches on location this year (thanks to one of the driest Octobers on record, which is otherwise not good news). That enabled me to include those sketches as part of my usual, everyday storytelling here. I always find InkTober most satisfying when I can incorporate the challenge seamlessly into my normal, everyday sketching life instead of as an add-on. Shown here are the few remaining sketches that I haven’t shown in previous posts. Some cutlines include process notes.

Although I started out with trepidation, committing to waterproof brush markers – first Staedtler and later Faber-Castell – turned out to be a big win. Devoting 31 consecutive days to the medium taught me how I like to use them, how I don’t, pushed me outside my comfort zone each day, and led to an interesting “a-ha” that I’ll tell you about tomorrow.

One goal for this challenge was to practice sketching with values rather than hues (a concept I’ve been interested in all year). Using a limited palette of markers chosen by tone and temperature (a warm and a cool of light, mid- and dark tones) was frustrating at times but was ultimately informative and intriguing. It forced me to push past my usual matchy-matchy tendency with hues based on “reality” and look first for values instead. Another win!

10/21/26 Maple Leaf neighborhood

On the last two days, I pulled out all stops and embraced the marks that markers make – whether I like them or not. At Café Blameless (last one in this post), to show the brilliant window against the dark interior, I filled the background with the streaky marker look I have always detested. On the upside, I discovered I really enjoy blue as an alternative to gray for shading.

Finally, on a cold but sunny Halloween afternoon, I took my markers to Green Lake Park to experiment with mark-making (top of post). Dense with foliage, the darkness of this scene was difficult to convey. I like the haphazard hatching of leaves, but the vertical lines underneath (cars, tennis court, more trees, and other non-descript darkness) are less than successful. It was total fun, though, having a what-the-hell experimental attitude.

Has InkTober made me want to keep using brush markers for urban sketching? Probably not – at least not exclusively as I used them all month. But the challenge definitely opened my mind to their potential as a useful addition to my kit. I’m looking forward to further explorations ahead!

10/27/26 This day was a complete outlier. I had just received some new Field Notes from Draplin Design Co. containing funky pages printed with various abstract patterns that begged to be colored! I used the same palette of Pitt Artist Pens that I'd been using for InkTober to try a page.

10/28/26 When layered over other colors, the light blue Pitt makes a nice cool midtone for shadows.
(photo reference)

10/29/26 The morning before my noon colonoscopy, I was feeling dizzy and shaky, probably from low blood sugar and lack of sleep, but I pushed through this sketch anyway. I put in the foreground plants as an afterthought after I'd already drawn the frame, making for a clumsy composition. Looking at it now, though, I'm pleased by the value range I got from just five markers. (reference photo)

10/30/26 Cafe Blameless, Bryant neighborhood. Embracing the marker-y look I don't like!