November 01, 2022
Hi peeps! Can you believe it is November already? I always call November the black and white month because where I live here along the Winnipeg River in Manitoba, the skies seem to be cloudy grey all month long, and enough wet, sticky snow falls to just cover everything but not completely. In contrast to the dull white snow (because it is reflecting the dull overcast skies) everything looks dark and somber. So to flip my perspective, I try looking at November as an opportunity. Opportunity for what you ask? It's a great time to practice my black and white photography, or to practice seeing values. The grey scale is right outside my door! 😁
And that segways me right into my next topic. Black and white is the color scheme I worked in all month long in October for the 31 day Inktober challenge. I figure I'd talk a little about this year's experience - how things went, what worked, what didn't, and so on. After that I thought I'd share a bit about the online workshops and presentations I've attended this month. We are so lucky to live in a time where we can have access to all sorts of knowledge and experience shared literally at the touch of a (computer) button. I don't think I would been even making art if not for been able to learn through the internet. And I'll touch on what I've accomplished in my goals I mentioned last month in my newsletter and what's upcoming in November. Hopefully some of this will be of interest to you, maybe a bit helpful, or the very least slightly entertaining!!
Inktober
This is my second time participating, the first being in 2020. Inktober is a 31 day drawing challenge started by Jake Parker quite a number of years ago. He is a comic and children's book illustrator who wanted to get better at inking. He decided to give himself a new word prompt every day for the 31 days of October and challenged himself to draw and ink a picture for each prompt. Now it is a world wide event done by thousands of artists and has even inspired all sorts of other challenges. You can check it out here.
The first year I did the challenge in a tiny sketchbook and my goal was to make each picture I drew tell a story. It was fun, but oh so hard to come up with a new story each day. Some were pretty good and some I'd call great learning experiences. For 2022, I decided to use the same character 31 times and practice character poses (pssttt...secret dream is to illustrate children's books but that's for another post).
I have to tell you I had SO MUCH FUN doing the poses all month. Oh my goodness guys, if you could have seen me. I was twisting my hands in position, my arms and legs, even getting down on my hands and knees while trying to see myself in the mirror, all to figure out what a pose looked like. And the little girl (whom I have yet to name) let me know who she was, picture by picture. I'm at the end of the month now, and I think there is still so much more to discover about her. The photo at the beginning of this newsletter is for the word prompt "empty" on Day 14. All the drawings were posted to my Instagram account and Facebook page during the month.
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| Samples of some of the thumbnails used to figure out poses. |
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I made my drawings on this paper. It stood up to lots of erasing as I finalized the poses!
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What I Got Out of Inktober this Time Around!
- Helped me to show up every day. Even the days I didn't draw, my brain was busy coming up with possible sketch ideas.
- Made me dig deep into my memories to come up with fresh ideas or stories that interested me. Helped me realize that I have a lot of experiences I can draw on. This is a big one because normally I feel that I never have any ideas and fall back onto drawing the same old things.
- Learned to not choose the first thing that comes to mind - the second or third or fourth thing were often much better. Though sometimes I still went back to the first thing. There is never only one right way to do art, which is another thing it helped me solidify.
- Most of my pictures I drew from memory (or looking in the mirror). I'm trying to find my own "style" or "voice". Sometimes I was really stumped so I found references on Pinterest to help me through. When I drew from reference I learned that I had to be real careful not to become too tight or perfectiony.
- Sharing some of my stories, even good feeling kind of stories, for me was a bit scary and made me feel a little vulnerable. I had such lovely feedback from people which meant the world to me. It also showed me that it is okay to share, and that it adds so much more to my art when it comes from an authentic place.
- Practice drawing. You can't help but get better if you work on it a little every day.
This challenge was fun but it is also a challenge which means it was also hard. It was hard coming up with a new idea every day, even if I had a set character. I fussed at making sure whatever I drew fit my character so that led me to struggles some days as I worked to make the prompt word fit. And there were days I was tired, days I didn't have any time, days I figured I was never going to make it to the end of the month. At those times I put the work away and did something else. After all, I wasn't going to get an "F" if I didn't complete an "assignment". And as it turns out, I was able to pick up and complete a picture for each prompt word (I learned doing two a day for me was the perfect amount, no matter how far behind I was).
Final analysis? Inktober is worth it, whether you do every prompt word or only a couple. One of the best things about this challenge is sharing the experience with thousands of people all over the world. For 31 days we are all part of one artistic community, encouraging and helping each other along.
On Online Learning
I came across a few new places online that offer lots of great information, tips and ideas. Even if they are not exactly in your wheelhouse, there are great tidbits to pull out that may add to your own art process.
Free Friday Night Comic Workshops at Sequential Artists Workshops: I've been to three of them so far and they are fun. It's done through Zoom and each week a guest artist gives a bit of a talk and then walks us through a small exercise.
Illustrator in Residence Program at the Toronto Public Library: The talented author/illustrator Sandra Dumais was the illustrator in residence last month at the TPL. Part of her residency had her do 4 free online workshops on topics like "Going Beyond Comfort Zones and Growing as an Artist" and "Developing Your Style". Her residency is done, but I'm going to keep my eye out for more from TPL. We can also check out other libraries and see if they offer similar programming.
The Society of Illustrators has a Youtube channel that has all sorts of free virtual lectures. I like to watch the Saturday Stories series where guest artists talks about and read from their books, then show you how to make some of their process.
You can see the theme running through the types of videos I like to watch. However, I've explored a lot over the years (especially since we upgraded to an unlimited internet data package - that changed my life!). If you'd like me to suggest videos for other art topics like perspective or watercolor basics, let me know in the comments. I might have some recommendations.
Past Upcoming and Future Upcoming
I'd listed 3 things for upcoming last month and I get to give myself two big fat checkmarks out of three:
Inktober was the big one and I'm so happy that I was able to make 31 drawings. I'm going to turn some of the drawings into prints. If you have a favorite or two, let me know in the comments below. I'll be posting about them on Instagram and Facebook when they are ready.
I've also got some new designs up in my online shop at Redbubble. I thought I'd do Christmasy ones, but I ended up leaning more into winter designs. Plus I couldn't resist the swirl design. Does it give you a hint of a story about dragons? I feel there is something behind this symbol that just might suggest a whole other world. You can check it and the other designs out here.
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| Design inspired by a workshop with Esté MacLeod. Here it is on a sticker. |
Re-start personal project. *sigh* I'm a bit bummed that I didn't get further on this. I think what's holding me back is the technical part of creating this project. I need to know more about using Affinity Photo and Affinity Publisher (which gives you a hint of what the final might be) and decide if that is the way I'm going to go, or if I'm going to do it all by hand which has me learning another whole set of skills. I know it all sounds a bit cagey and I'm not giving you much. I think once I get settled on exactly how I'm going to proceed and really get into the meat of the doing, I will have lots to share.
November Upcoming:
The big one for me is making some prints of Inktober drawings. This takes some research and a whole lot of "closing my eyes and taking the plunge 'cause it is scary". I've never made prints of my work. What I do know is I want to work with a local printer (local being in the city near me). Other than that I am figuring it out as I go.
I'm going to continue to work on my personal project restart and add some new designs to the online shop.
And I'm thinking of doing up a Christmas card to send out this year. I haven't sent out cards in years. Life has a way of making you prioritize what's important. My mom used to hang all our cards along the headers on the ceiling into our living room. It was magical looking up at all those cards (there must have been 30 or 40 of them) and seeing all the different pictures. Of course, I'm leaving it a bit on the late side, so I'll have to jump on that real quick.
You've Reached the End
That's all I've got for this month's newsletter. I probably could go on some more but I appreciate that you stayed with me to the end. I'm doing lots of exploring to see what works and what I like to do, so it's great that you are joining along with me on this journey. If there are things you'd like to know about or questions you have about anything, put it in the comments below. I do like a good chat!
Leah
