So week two has actually come and gone.. almost a week ago.  I am super behind on getting this Inktober thing up to date!  I had a moment of despair last week where I thought I was too far behind to complete on time, and then I realized – who cares?  If I complete Inktober in November, at least I did it, and that’s what matters the most to me.

Day 8: Crooked

Day 9: Screech

Day 10: Gigantic

Day 11: Run

Day 12: Shattered

Day 13: Teeming

Day 14: Fierce

This week’s prompts started with “Crooked”, and originally I was going to do a shepherd on a hill with a bunch of sheep, and I even got so far as to sketch it out, but just wasn’t feeling it.  Instead, I decided to draw a crook, and take the word a little less literally.  You’ll notice a trend in the first five days of the week too..  circles. For some reason, circles everywhere.

Day 9’s prompt was “Screech”, so I drew a Northern Screech Owl.  Cute little buggers.  And of course he needed a moon behind him.  Circle 2.

The tenth day’s prompt was “Gigantic” and I fell in love with the idea of trying to convey the scale of a giant monster invading land.  What better monster to do this than Cthulhu?!  He’s also a pretty cute little bugger.  And I put him in a circle.

For circle four – I mean, prompt 11 – the word was “Run”.  Honestly, I wasn’t really feeling this one and I feel like I phoned it in a little bit.  I certainly wasn’t feeling inspired by the word, and I was feeling like I was wasting a lot of time, so I just drew some horses running in front of Mount Shasta.  Meh.  Not my favorite.

Prompt 12 was “Shattered”, and I’ve been wanting to draw a cow skull ever since I ate dinner at Longhorn.  Is that weird?  Anyway, it needed a gold circle, so it got one.

The 13th prompt was “Teeming” and I was feeling a lot like I did on day 11 for this one as well – completely uninspired.  I did the lamest thing and just looked up “teeming” as a google search and saw a picture of a bunch of bees.  I actually really like the way this one came out, and not just because it’s not a flipping circle but I think it has a lot of successes.  It was very hard to photograph without washing out one of the gold bees, so there you have it.

Prompt 14 was “Fierce”, and although this may be one of the subjects a ton of people probably went to with this prompt, I was determined to make it look decent.  I am actually not thrilled with this one just because I know the image I was looking at and I feel like some of the proportions of the tiger’s face just aren’t correct, but I think the style of the fur and the values were a success so it was kind of a mixed bag for me.

Will I be able to complete Inktober on time??  (almost certainly not)
Will I get distracted with the PC Destiny 2 release next Tuesday?? (almost certainly)
Tune in and see what happens next week!

It’s October, and to those of you involved in the art community online you’ll probably recognize that as a sign that it is the month of the very popular Inktober challenge!  For those of you not familiar with it, Inktober asks that you draw a picture every day in October.  You are encouraged to use ink and there is a list of prompts for every day of the month which you can use (but it’s not necessary).

This is my first year doing Inktober and I’ve been pretty happy with it so far.  I don’t generally draw using only ink and pens so it’s been really quite nice to push myself out of my comfort zone.  I’ve been using the prompt list because I fear that if I didn’t I would just draw the same stuff I usually do!  Inevitably I am going to draw some of the things that I generally like drawing, but I am using this month as a push to get me further outside of my comfort level and I am trying to draw some things I normally wouldn’t.

Here are my Inktober drawings for the first week.  I’ll be talking about them a little more individually below the gallery.  Click on the images in the gallery below to see them in greater detail.

Day 1: Swift

Day 2: Divided

Day 3: Poison

Day 4: Underwater

Day 5: Long

Day 6: Sword

Day 7: Shy

The first day’s prompt was “swift”.  At first, I attempted to draw a swallow, but gave up on that quickly.  I wish I had followed through with it because I have seen some of my other attempts at doing something different and have been very happy with the results.  I should have pushed through that first day, but I didn’t. Oh well.  This also was the first day I had ever used Copic markers.  I got a set of greyscale Sketch markers for Inktober specifically so you’ll see me using them in every picture this week.

The second prompt was “divided” and I was simply attempting to “divide” the sun and the moon.  The Earth seemed like a good thing to put in between!

Day three was “poison” and I went very, very literal here.  I was excited about this prompt but just couldn’t come up with anything super original so I just drew a poison bottle.  I used some India Ink for the background, which is why it looks a little shiny.

Day four was “underwater” and I think it is my favorite so far.  I love the idea of a dark and scary ocean, and animals bigger than we can comprehend, and I was happy with how it turned out.

The fifth prompt was “long” and I really struggled with inspiration for this one as well.  I ended up deciding to draw a giraffe’s face and I’m quite pleased with how this one came out as well.  I started learning here that doing the tedious little details can really pay off in an ink drawing.

Day six was “sword” and I again went very literal, deciding to draw the sword in the stone.  I spent a lot of time on the trees around the sides of the picture and I’m glad I did, I think they look decent.  The background is again India ink so it’s a bit shiny.

The seventh prompt was “shy”.  At first, I attempted to draw a shying horse but I didn’t like how it was coming out, so I decided that I wanted to draw a woman’s face (comfort zone!) but that she would be covering it up with a sweater.  I decided to go all out and give her a winter hat as well, so I suppose she might look more cold than shy.  Oh well.  Again I tried to concentrate on the details of the hat and how the knitting might look.  It’s not my favorite but I’m still happy with how it looks.

And that is the first seven days of Inktober!  I will post another update in a week with my second week of prompts.