Monday

Holidays in Ink Week 4



I can't believe we're more than half way through this challenge, and heading into Week 4. If you're doing the challenge also, let me know in the comments how it's going. I'm glad there are still over two and a half weeks left, since I still have a lot of untapped prompts, and nearly 30 blank pages remaining in this sketchbook!

The sketch above, in bright, primary colors, was the result of several days spent mostly doing monochromatic work. I was DYING for some bright color at that point, so I pulled out my most saturated, brightest watercolors, and gifted myself with a fiesta day of color intensity. Normally I'd do a composite with several different poses, but I loved the image of this dancer, so I sketched the same pose several times, as if it were a dance company chorus, letting the colors mingle and the images float across the page from one to the next. The linework was added after the watercolor dried.

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Day 15 (Part I)

  • Dancers (Subject Prompt #6)
  • Primary Colors Red, Yellow, Blue (Process Prompt #35)

Materials Used:




I have a huge roll of cheap white paper in the studio that I use for testing ideas and colors. Before doing the page spread of dancers directly in the sketchbook, I tore off a piece of the scrap paper and painted the one above, to see if I liked the result. I decided I wanted this one in the book too. I glued it to the edge of the sketchbook spread, so it pulls out and unfolds for viewing, then tucks back into the book. (I'll be doing a video flip-through of the book, so you'll see how I included some of the extra pages.)

Those were so much fun that I wanted to do more. Coincidentally, I had a Zoom figure drawing session with some friends scheduled for that afternoon. I took the opportunity to use different prompts to do something similar (below), selecting the the Orange/Green/Violet process prompt instead of primary colors, and the Figures prompt for my subject.



Day 15 (Part II)

  • Subject Prompt #8 (Figures)
  • Process Prompt #30 (Secondary Colors)

Materials - same as the primary colors sketches, plus

By the time I was done with those additional pages, my eyes were hurting from the intensity of the color! I was ready to revert to something a bit tamer for awhile.

I absolutely love the meditative feeling I get while practicing calligraphy and flourishes. I don't have time to do it often, so it was a real treat for me to pull out my practice sheets, calligraphy markers and pens, and work on flourishes and Copperplate lettering for a day. I think I had about a dozen pages done by the time I got up. I had a sheet of decorative calligraphy paper, so at the end, I cut some of it to fit into the sketchbook for the challenge, wrote the alphabet and some flourishes, and glued it into the book with a glue stick.



Day 14 (plus an additional 11 pages of calligraphy practice and flourishes)

  • Calligraphy I - Work on handwriting (Process Prompt #9)

Materials Used:

I have heard that the inexpensive Crayola felt tip markers are wonderful for calligraphy practice. I can't wait to try them. If you've had experience with them, please leave me a comment and let me know what you thought!

Melissa Fischer added the Pointillism prompt to the list for this challenge. I was so glad she did, because I've never done pointillism, but always wanted to. I wouldn't have thought to put it in there. I combined a few of my own reference images for a moonlit scene over the Hudson River, and felt the "Nocturne" and "Blue and Orange" prompts were ideal to convey the feeling I wanted. One thing I've noticed with drawing, and with pen work in general, is that I am so used to being able to block in large areas with paint that I get impatient with the slow-going, repetitive strokes in drawing. Using dots takes this difference to the extreme! I know I could take this sketch (below, left) farther with more time, more dots, and more contrast. I think it was DaVinci who said that art is never finished, only abandoned. My impatience won out, and this is where I decided to jump ship!  I'm definitely not in line to become the next Seurat, but it did make me realize that he must have had the patience of a saint. 

Day 16 (Part I)

  • Pointillism (Process Prompt #34)
  • Nocturne (Subject Prompt #22)
  • Blue and Orange (Process Prompt $8)

Materials Used:



The Patterns from Nature prompt (above right) lead me to explore some tree bark textures, feather patterns around my parakeet Palette's eye, and the spots on a giraffe from a photo I took at the Bronx Zoo.

Day 16 (Part II)

  • Patterns from Nature (Subject #24)
  • Line Variation (Process #27)

Materials Used:



I've been looking forward to doing gesture sketches and the black/white red prompt ever since the project started! I used the Quickposes.com website, and set the time for three minutes for the gesture sketches above. I used a red pen for the three minutes. After the page was filled, I went back with a black pen to solidify some lines and shading, and added the line work between the subjects. (That was more for the sake of practicing lines than anything else!)

Day 17 (Part I)

  • Mammals (Subject Prompt #16)
  • Black/White/Red (Process #7)
  • Gestures (Process #21) from Quickposes.com (3 minute)

Materials:

I actually did several additional pages of gestures on loose sheets, and decided to include the one below into my book. I glued it to the edge of the previous gesture sketch page, and it folds out from the book. This one was sketched all in black, again using Quickposes.com with a three minute time for each image. Afterwards, I added the red crosshatching for more line practice and to help the sketches pop from the background.



Day 17 (Part II)

  • Crosshatching practice (Process #16)
  • Gesture poses from Quickposes.com (3 minute)

Materials:



I truly struggle with drawing abstraction or creating from the imagination. I have a book by Bert Dodson that I really like (there's a link to it below), and I put a quote from the book into the sketch to remind me that sometimes we just need to pick a spot on the page, set pen to paper, and see what happens! 

Day 18

  • Abstract 1 - Line Doodle (Process Prompt #1)

Materials Used:

The facing page is a portrait of a Hornbill from a photo I took at the Bronx Zoo. I selected purple because it went so well with the ink color on the facing page, but I was dying to splash some paint on this extremely colorful bird face! I tried to work with the contours of the features to get more of a feel of the form, and slowly built up the layers of ink on the sketch, mostly working lightly with the side of the ballpoint, then putting in darkest darks at the end. I imitated the strokes I used for the feathers to do the lettering.

Day 19:

  • Animal Portrait (Subject #26)
  • Ballpoint Pen one color (Process #3)

Materials Used:

In the past three past three weeks, I've made it through most of the process prompts, but still have a lot of the subject prompts left to do. How are the rest of you doing with the lists, if you're using them? Although it was never my intention to  to complete them all, I'm hoping to explore most of them.

Oops! I almost forgot.... On Day 14 I did the Facial Features prompt, selecting three colors from the Faber-Castell Pitt Portrait Brush Pen set for the three analogous values/colors prompt. (I got this set on sale. It's definitely not worth the current price in that link, in my opinion.)



I apologize for the less than stellar images of the sketches shown today. It's snowing outside, and the color of the light in my studio is more yellowish than I like. I've done some adjusting, but they're far from ideal. I'm hoping to do a video flip-through within a few days, and then another one at the end of the challenge when the book is complete. I'll wait for a day with better light to do that! You'll also get a very different perspective on the sketches when viewing them as a collection in a bound book.

Some of the Subject Prompts I hope to tackle during this upcoming 4th week of the challenge include:

  • Rocks (#28)
  • Stairs/Steps (34)
  • Anatomy (1)
  • Window Sketch (40)

For the Process Prompts, I'll likely have a go at:

  • At least one of the Pen Making prompts (I, II or III)
  • Black and White on Toned paper (6)
  • Ink and Watercolor (23)
  • One Reference Three Ways (40)

If you want to join the challenge, but feel like you missed the train, no worries! You can hop on board at any time and still get to your destination. There are definitely some people who plan to do the challenge later. Here is a link with the details and prompt lists. If you'd like to see all of the Holidays in Ink posts, click here.

If you'd like to be sure not to miss a post, you can subscribe on the upper right side of my blog by entering your email address. I do not share email addresses, and you will then be notified of posts when they are published here.

If you've gotten this far, you probably don't mind lengthy posts! But I've been wondering if it would be easier for my viewers to see a day or two's worth of sketches at a time, and have more frequent posts, rather than these lengthy, weekly posts. I'd appreciate it if you'd let me know your thoughts about that in the comments, and also let me know how you're doing with the challenge. 



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2 comments:

  1. b.jeannie.richter6:51 PM

    I am enjoying watching you work hard and so interestingly...while I putter and do only a bit here and there and often as not - not even really "ink" at all. Thanks for letting me watch, very inspiring!...beryl

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