Inktober 2021: days 1-6
I decided to participate in Inktober this year, and here are my first six paintings. I have done Inktober once before, in 2018, and it was really beneficial for my artistic development so I thought I'd do it again this year.
For those who haven’t heard of it before, Inktober is an event/challenge within the art community to create a piece of art each day in October. There is a set of single word prompts available on the Inktober website (https://inktober.com/rules). I am following the official prompts, but not everyone does, and some people have made alternative lists around particular themes.
All of these paintings are done in watercolour, sometimes
with the addition of watercolour pencil, gouache, or sparkly pens. I
planned out and did thumbnail sketches of my idea for each prompt during September, although some have since changed.
Planning ahead has definitely made it easier than last time, where I always tried
to decide the subject and composition on the day.
-
[Image ID] Watercolour painting of a cave, a crystal and a shaft of light. The focal point in the centre of the picture is a large pink angular crystal on the floor of the cave. The shaft of light is coming in from the back of the cave. There are some glitter effects in and around the shaft of light and the crystal. [description end]
-
I quickly came up with the idea of looking into a cave through a hole in the rocks, and it made for an interesting composition. I used two glittery pens, and stickles, to add a glittery shine to the edges of the crystals.
-
[Image ID] photo of the painting tilted to show the sparkle effects [description end]
-
The 2nd prompt was ‘suit’.
-
[Image ID] Watercolour painting of a suit dress. It is a warm grey wrap style dress with 5 buttons and a lapel collar at the front. It is on a mannequin that has a fabric torso and gold coloured metal base. On the floor at the base of the mannequin is a pair of heeled, brown ankle boots. Next to them and propped up against the mannequin base is a brown handbag with a chain strap. [description end]
-
I went back and forth between
various ideas before eventually settling for a suit-dress on a mannequin.
[Image ID] Water colour painting of dried flowers in a glass and a collection of pumpkins. The flowers are white Statice with visible green stems. The glass has a deep rim and lozenge shaped panels all the way round below that. Arranged around the base of the glass are 6 pumpkins of varying shapes and sizes. Some have green stalks and some have brown ones. [description end]
-
I rarely do ‘still life’ but this
glass of dried flowers I had in the house really appealed to me. I’ve included
the reference photo I worked from as I thought it would be interesting to see
them both.
[Image ID] Photo of white Statice flowers in a large glass. In front of the base of the glass is a collection of pumpkins. The pumpkins are a variety of sizes and are made of different materials. Two are crocheted, three are realistic looking despite being made of plastic and one is painted polystyrene. [description end]
-
-
[Image ID] Watercolour painting of a coastal landscape with a rope frame. The sky is light blue with bits of white cloud. The focal point of the picture is a rocky cliff outcrop leading down to an arch in the rock that is like an open doorway allowing you to see the sea going through it. The inspiration for this was the natural limestone arch at Durdle Door in Dorset. Land is visible on the horizon beyond the archway. The sea is calm and blue. The landscape is framed by a rope with a knot in the bottom right hand corner. The rope is painted in an irregular but natural shape round the picture. [description end]
-
My immediate thought was to use knotted
rope as a border for a painting of the sea. The rock formation in this piece was
inspired by Durdle Door. I used two glitter pens on the water, a blue Nuvo glitter
marker, and a silver uniball signo sparkle pen.
-
[Image ID] photo of the painting tilted to show the sparkle effects [description end]
-
[Image ID] Watercolour painting of a raven, moon and tree. The background is a light purple colour at the top graded down to a light raven colour at the bottom. It is a silhouette of a raven – the tail, lower half and legs and feet of the bird are not in the picture. The raven is there in its own right but is also part of a landscape. Some of the body and feathers have been painted in such a way that they are both part of the bird and the background hills in a landscape. In front of them is a silhouetted leafless tree whose trunk and branches stretch up to the head of the raven. Behind the tree on the body of the raven is a full moon. [description end]
-
I’ve always wanted to do a
painting of a ‘landscape within the shape of an animal’ but had never been brave
enough to actually try it. I’m very happy with how this came out, and
appreciate the prompt pushing me to tackle this style of painting.
[Image ID] Water colour painting of toadstools of different heights and a toadstool spirit in the middle of the picture. The background is a light blue apart from the central yellowy glow that the toadstool spirit is in. The spirit is wearing a pinky brown toadstool cap with visible gills. The spirit is a light brown colour and has arms a bit like a dog’s floppy ears but it has no legs or feet. On the ground there are 7 toadstools. Three of them have thin stalks of different heights and 4 have thick chunky stalks. The 3 with thin stalks have pointed caps with less visible gills. The other 4 have very visible gills and an obvious collar below that. Two of the thick stalked ones have green caps. The tallest thin stalked one, to the left of the spirit, has a yellow cap as does the short stocky stemmed one on the far right of the picture. There is a brown capped, thin stalked, toadstool either side of the spirit. The one to the left is quite short and is located to the right of the tall yellow toadstool. The brown toadstool to the right of the spirit is next to a very tall thick stalked and green capped toadstool. To the left of the tall, thin, yellow toadstool are a medium height, chunky, green capped toadstool and a slightly shorter chunky brown one. [description end]
-
I’m not entirely
sure where this idea came from, beyond the fact that a little forest spirit
wearing a mushroom hat seemed cute. I tried adding ‘sparkle’ shapes with a
white gel pen, but they didn’t show up very well on the light blue background,
so I swapped to using a gold uniball signo sparkle pen.
-
[Image ID] photo of the painting tilted to show the sparkle effects [description end]
-
I will be sharing the rest of my Inktober paintings in batches,
like this, over the next few weeks. Once posted, all of the posts will be able
to be found here on my website’s Inktober tag.