Prompt List for Holidays in Ink (plus other media) 2022-23

Here's the post that many have been eagerly awaiting....

THE PROMPT LIST!

If you haven't yet seen the post with the dates and other details of the Holidays in Ink Challenge, you can find it here.  Please read that first, as it is not repeated here.

The prompts below are an Inspiration Library for when you're stumped for what to draw, or you can do them all, or do none of them. The prompts are meant to be combined in your sketches, not just used individually. Don't get overwhelmed by how many there are; combining them in sketches is part of the challenge. There is no requirement that you do the prompts. The real goal is to finish your sketchbook! 

I will do things a bit differently this year, and skip around in my book from day to day.  You can work on pages over multiple days, and/or multiple pages in one day. You do you. Pack the pages, and fill that book!

I've divided the prompts below into loose categories. Do them in whatever order you wish, according to how much time you have, what you feel like doing, or if you are traveling.

Diamine Inkvent Favorites - 2021 Red Edition

In spite of an overflowing cabinet of fountain pen inks, I purchased the 2021 Inkvent Calendar by Diamine to have 25 new inks to explore during the Holidays in Ink Challenge. (Twenty-four of them are shown in the image above.) Diamine will be releasing these inks in bottles for individual purchase in early 2022, for those who weren't fortunate enough to snap up one of the collections. This post showcases my personal favorites from the set. And, yes, I have a LOT of favorites!

Holidays in Ink 2021-2022. What's the plan?

Everybody has been asking me if I am planning another Holidays in Ink challenge this year, and the answer is most definitely, "YES!" I hope you'll join me from Monday, November 22 through Sunday, January 2 to complete this challenge. Melissa Fischer is teaming up with me once again to come up with prompt lists that can inspire us and improve our art. 

Your mission, should you decide to accept it, is to complete a Holidays in Ink sketchbook from cover to cover during the dates of the challenge. That's it. You don't have to follow prompt lists nor make your own sketchbook if you don't want to.

If you'd like to play along with us, here's how you can get ready:

• Look at your own hectic, topsy-turvy calendar for the six weeks beginning November 22. According to your schedule/travel plans/family gatherings, etc., and how large you plan to work, calculate how many pages you can realistically fill during that time. (I don't mean a two minute sketch on a page; I mean filled pages, even if it takes a few days to fill a page.) That will be your personal goal for the challenge. Select an appropriate sketchbook based on that information. Make sure it's paper you love, that will handle ink however you like to work. Or you can make a sketchbook, or cut paper to size and use a folder as your "book". Make sure you have a couple of extra pages in the back of your book to test out inks and materials, and a title page or two in the front.
• Compile a list of any additional supplies you'll need, or things you'd like to try that you don't have. Order those now, so you'll have them in plenty of time. Supply chain issues could leave you stranded if you wait till the last minute. Consider doing this with a friend or two or three, and sharing some new inks among you to divide the costs. (If you'd like to check out some of my favorite materials from last year's challenge, you can see them on this post.)

If you've never done bookbinding, this is a great opportunity to take on a bookbinding project before the challenge begins! (Make a small one first to test drive the process.) There are lots of great YouTube videos on bookbinding, with hundreds of options to explore. I especially like Sea Lemon and Nik the Booksmith on YouTube. 

There will be a prompt list posted before the challenge starts, for those of you who would like to work from a list. If you want to be sure not to miss the posts related to this challenge, you can subscribe to this blog by entering your email address on the upper right. You will then receive email notifications of new posts.

I'm doing my paper and materials testing now, and will probably bind my own sketchbook for the challenge, or rebind an existing book. Melissa and I have ordered the new Diamine Inkvent 2021 Calendar, so we will be exploring the 25 brand new inks in that collection, as well as using inks we already have. We're looking forward to lots of linework with fountain pens, dip pens, and even ballpoints (great for travel!), plus wet on wet washes, calligraphy and lettering, and more compositional study. We hope you'll join us! Stay tuned for the prompt lists.

Sketchbook in a Tin

 

A friend of mine gave me a really cute tin filled with 30 cold press Hannemule watercolor postcards. (https://amzn.to/3cceRSN.) You can see the tin in the image above on the upper right corner. It's been super easy to tuck it into a sketch bag with a small pan set of watercolors or gouache, or a favorite brush pen (https://amzn.to/3mAWTOC) for monochromatic studies. The cards are 4x6" with rounded corners. I'd classify the paper as

Stillman and Birn Nova Trio Sketchbook Review

Immature Bald Eagle, gouache on gray paper of a Stillman & Birn Nova Trio Sketchbook

(Click title if full review does not appear.)

What happens when you take a year off social media and blog posting?

Well for one thing, you end up with a heck of a lot more time. I logged about a thousand pages of sketches and paintings during the year, experimented with a whole host of media and subjects that I can't wait to tell you all about, spent more time socializing and painting with friends, took on a bunch of artistic challenges, played more music, and the list goes on. But I also missed the online associations. I didn't get Facebook notifications when it was somebody's birthday, and missed hearing about important events in my friends' lives. Thanks to all of my real life artist friends who I see on a regular basis, I never felt like I was in an artistic vacuum, but I didn't get to see all the works that used to travel by on my news feed on social media. 

I also removed my work from the public eye for a year. I retrieved my paintings from all my galleries, did not enter any shows, and posted none of my 1,000 new sketches and paintings. Overall, I have to say that the experience was very freeing! Since nobody would see my work, I wasn't concerned with whether or not it was marketable, or if anybody would show up for show openings. I was free to explore subjects that challenged me, work on drawing, experiment with line work, study anatomy and perspective, copy paintings of the masters, practice constructive drawing techniques, play with abstraction and mixed media, and use whatever I wanted for reference without worrying about copyright restrictions. As a very self-motivated individual, I ended up painting and sketching more than ever, with the time I saved from my self-imposed removal from online interactions.

Now that the year is up, I'm ready to see where this online reincarnation takes me, and how/if it affects the way I've been working for the past year. The sketch above was done in an old, large format music book. It's a watercolor from Muscoot Farm, where my favorite vantage points always end up being smack in the middle of the farm road! The music writing on this page seems to work out well with the composition of the sketch. I got excited about doing the whole book this way, but some other sketches didn't fare as well. After fighting with those, I found it generally better to knock back the music notation a level or two with a thin application of gesso, although that posed some other problems! As the days go by, I'll take you along on my recent art journey. Perhaps you'll get some ideas for your own sketching process too.