I had not planned on to participate in the Inktober challenge this year. But then I started seeing all the drawings other artists were doing, and I wanted to join as well. Not because I have a real wish of getting better at drawing with ink, but because I want to get better at drawing in general and to get back into a daily drawing habit. For an artist it is very important to draw a little everyday, it is like doing scales for the piano player. It helps to contain and more importantly to develop the hand and eye coordination that is so important to us.
I looked through the drawings I did for Inktober last year, and decided to develop those ideas that I really liked but never did something with. It has become a bird series that I am actually quite happy with. So far I have only been working in my Strathmore art journal.
Fantail. Ink and silver leaf. I made one similar drawing before this one, but everything that could go wrong with it did. So I tried again, and this time it worked a lot better. I still had a little problem with the glue for the silver leaf for the circle, it seems like it does not behave as it should on the paper in this journal.
Barnowl. Ink, watercolour, and this time copper acrylic paint for the circle instead of copper leaf. Much easier to handle!
Woodpecker. Ink and watercolour. The head became a little too small in this drawing.
Nuthatch. Ink, watercolour and acrylic paint. This is my favourite so far, I think. My ink strokes are much better, less chaotic. I also used salt with the watercolours in the background, and I like the effect it gave me.
Detail to show you the gold and copper mix I did with acrylic paint for the circle.
Lappwings. This is quite a mess. I did not know if I wanted to add the circle to this page at all, and I regretted it afterwards. But that is what experiments are for. To see if some things work or not. If we do not try, we will not learn. I have to draw this idea again, and hopefully end up with a totally different image.
So, why a circle? I saw a few artists use the circle as a design element in their drawings last year, and I really liked how it looked. I thought I wanted to give it a go as well. To see if it would suite my style of drawing, and if it would render itself nicely on coffee mugs and the likes now when I am in the process of setting up my RedBubble print shop.
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