Inktober Day 5--Sad

 

I don't know about you, but I find it a bit challenging to use the prompt "SAD" for today's Inktober sketch.

I am sure that when I look over the sketches with #inktober2016day5 on them I will find some very heart rending, touching, sorrowful images. Without minimizing the need for expression that generates these renditions, I personally don't feel like going there today. So I will take this opportunity to express  the lighter meaning of sad; actually two ways of interpreting it.

The parked cars at the top left and bottom of this page are from a small village in Yorkshire, which I was sad (regretful) to have had only part of a day to spend drawing and painting on location. I wish I could spend weeks and months there.

The single occupied vehicle above right illustrates the sad state of affairs during gridlock on my commute to Seattle each week. This car was "parked" directly in front of me in the middle lane of I-5, waiting with the rest of us in the same situation to move forward, inch by inch. I hate having to take over 2 hours on a trip that should only be 45 minutes.

Is it InkTober yet?

In 2009, Illustrator Jake Parker set out on a mission to refine his inking skills and develop positive drawing habits. For the month of October, Jake challenged himself to create a drawing every day using only ink-based products. This has grown to become a worldwide phenomenon. Follow the link for more information. 

I'm doing this for the third year in a row this year.
Anyone can do InkTober, just pick up a pen and start drawing.

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The Official 2016 Inktober Prompt List:

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Inktober rules:

1) Make a drawing in ink (you can do a pencil under-drawing if you want).

2) Post it online

3) Hashtag it with #inktober and #inktober2016

4) Repeat

Note: you can do it daily, or go the half-marathon route and post every other day, or just do the 5K and post once a week. What ever you decide, just be consistent with it. INKtober is about growing and improving and forming positive habits, so the more you’re consistent the better.

That's it! Now go make something beautiful.

All 31 of my Inktober 2015 sketches

After enduring a rough nine days with the cough, cold, fever yuck that's been going around, I finally feel like scanning all my Inktober 2015 sketches and posting the collection. (Tap or click to zoom)

Bee Super Deluxe 6x12"sketchbook, Lamy pen, watersoluble ink & Aquash water brush.

My faithful Lamy fountain pen lasted until the very end. In fact, I think I could possibly do one more sketch with what's left in the cartridge. Wouldn't want to waste any ink now, would we?

Easy Turban Squash Recipe

Turban Squash, for all its dramatic color, is a scary one to cook. Why? Because you risk a tragic accident just trying to cut it! That goes for Acorn Squash, too! Once you have it cut in two and the seeds removed, just place the halves in a baking pan, cover 1/2 way up to the rim with hot water and roast at 375° F for 1 hr.

Wash the seeds, drizzle with olive oil and sprinkle with salt. Let them roast in a separate pan for about 10 minutes. Yum!

Inktober in Snohomish

I spent the morning with Seattle Urban Sketchers at Craven Farms in Snohomish. Right there at the main gate was a great spot to make my Inktober 18 drawing.

Each gate post along the exits and entrances to the farm has a distinctive finial made of metal.

Everyone was already in the main farmyard, but rain was expected at any time, so I wanted to be sure to capture this before any drops fell. My water soluble ink would smudge and smear if it got rained on, and not in a good way.

Inktober finished for the day. Now I'm off to join the others in the farmyard for more sketching.

Autumn on the Centennial Trail

My two sketches grew together and would not be separated.

Hikers, bikers and strollers pass over the one-car opening under the bridge

The Snohomish County Centennial Trail is a 30-mile-long rail trail in Snohomish County, Washington, connecting the cities of Snohomish, Lake Stevens, and Arlington to Skagit County along the corridor of Washington State Route 9. I've always wanted to sketch the narrow opening under the old railroad bridge where you can just barely see that there is a house hidden back there. Actually, more than one house, but the view I chose today just shows part of one of them.

Catching the Leaves as they Fall

I pulled over for a tree today. I needed my Inktober Day 16 drawing and I caught a glimpse of it in the rear view mirror as I was driving home from my watercolor class in Kirkland. So I parked and stood on the sidewalk across the street from my car to sketch.

Market Street is quite dangerous for pedestrians, so the city has provided crossing flags for you as you prepare to use the crosswalk. Add that plus back lighting, no pockets, no chair, no color and leaves falling as you paint them and you've got a pretty thrilling 10 minute Inktober sketch. *James Bond music playing in the background.*

Inktober, Day 16--Lamy Pen, Waterbrush, Bee Sketchbook

House Made of Brick

Yes! You were correct. My third in the series is something made of brick. I'm not literally telling the story of the three little pigs and the big bad wolf. I'm just using the materials from which they made their houses as the spark for inspiration.

Inktober Day 14--House made of Brick

I had a bit of a challenge trying to find something that inspired me, but this back alley in Arlington was perfect. There's a small engine repair shop in an original old brick building which has been painted over. The big door (out of photo) in the back alley is where they take in the items needing repair and where all the character lives. Eventually all the guys in the shop had to ask if I was an artist and come over to see what I was drawing.

Straw, Wood,  Brick--Final Sketch in Progress

The sun came out while I was sketching and I may have gotten a bit of sunburn, since I thought that possibility was over for the year and wasn't prepared. I didn't even have sunglasses on hand! I did have a wide brimmed hat in the trunk of my car nearby, but it seemed a bit formal for an alley.

A House Made of Wood

Inktober 13, 2015--A House Made of Wood

I'm on Day 13 and the second in a series I'm doing for Inktober this week. Yesterday I sketched a "house made of straw". In my quest for something a bit different while still qualifying as a "house made of wood", the driftwood structures that emerge on the beaches here in the Pacific NW came to mind.

I have taken photos whenever I encounter them, but my goal for today was to do this Inktober sketch on location. I spent an afternoon prowling along Marine Drive near where I live, but all the beaches I wanted to visit were private or on tribal land and not open to me. So I ended up at Livingston Beach on Camano Island. (The teepee style driftwood structure in the upper left section of this photo collage was also on the beach where I was today, but it was on private property.)


I wanted to wait for a sun break at the end of my sketch so that I could catch some dramatic shadows. But the tide was coming in so I had to be satisfied with the light I was given. (Progress shot lower right.)

Can you guess what the third subject will be in this mini-series?

House Made of Straw

I have a bird's nest given to me by a friend who cut the entire branch so the nest would stay intact. So much fun using line and tone with this! I usually let the first drawing on a page dictate what the rest of the drawings on the page will be. If I do a series of three, want to guess where I'm going with this?

There is a phrase, "a house of straw", meaning that it won't take much to topple it down. Well, for 12 days I have stuck to nothing but black and white ink drawings for Inktober. Today I did my ink, but I just HAD to capture the color out there before it all blew away! So I toppled.


I drove to our Cinema in town where I know that the entire parking lot is ablaze with red trees. Beautiful to look at, but not quite what I wanted after all. Then I came around the corner and there in all its glory was a white dumpster, a yellow fire hydrant and above all, a group of trees showing all the fall colors!
It had rained earlier and the colors reflected for a while in the puddles and wet pavement. Perfect!

Inspired by the workbench

Inktober, 2015, Day 11: As I entered the garage today, my husband's workbench was back lit and the Kleenex box with tissue all  fluffed out caught my eye. Then there were his safety glasses and fishing hats hung on a peg, his 25 foot measuring tape on the window sill and an old "For Sale sign".

Gary's corner

Old fishing headgear and black safety glasses
Lawnmower upgrades for cutting our grasses
Pulleys and dead bolts and sprockets and springs
These are a few of his .............................

Haha, gotcha!

Sipping Tea by North Light

It was a dark and stormy day......

I wanted to sketch by natural north light, so I took advantage of my remedy for a gloomy afternoon; tea and cookies! After I had heated the water, brewed the tea and had taken a few sips, and ripped the red strip off the package of cookies, I realized that it was already 3:45 and the light was going fast.

So I grabbed my Lamy pen and waterbrush and got to work. No time for a bite of gingerbread cookies just yet!

4:28 pm-These cookies are yummy and the tea is still piping hot. Sip, sip, Ahhh!

4:28 pm.-Sipping tea by north light

Couldn't find Schnitzel

Ahhh. The last day of my "Julie Andrews" curse. (Let's just hope Dick Van Dyke doesn't start up with Chim-Chim-Cher-ee!)

I present to you: Brown Paper Packages Tied Up With String!

These are the kind of packages my grandmothers would send with gifts, cards, clothes, puzzles, coloring books, dolls, and homemade cookies in them. To keep things steady, they would pop up a pan of popcorn and use that to fill in the voids. When you opened the package, you saved the string, carefully folded the paper for later use and inhaled a big whiff of popcorn! (I wonder if anyone ever used real peanuts?)

Thank you, everyone from Instagram and who commented through email and here on my blog with great ideas from "My Favorite Things".  At the risk of going insane with that tune in my head 24-7, there actually are quite a few of those that I just may end up coming back to before the end of Inktober!