Inktober 2018

I decided to participate in #Inktober this year. If you are following me on my other social platforms, then you have not missed it. Inktober is a drawing challenge that Jake Parker started for himself a few years ago, to improve his inking skills. The challenge is to draw every day during October and post it online with the hashtag #inktober.  It has now become quite the rage amongst many artists, and it has also developed into including other media than only ink. The main goal with this challenge is to get into a daily habit of drawing. I thought that is a splendid idea, and so that is why I decided to hop on the inktober train and join in the fun. 

So far I have used only ink, traditional Chinese ink and acrylic inks. I have tried a few different approaches, and I am not sure I like working with the coloured inks that much. I have a couple more ideas to try out, but if it doesn't work out, then I will change to watercolours. The important thing is to take a little time every day to draw. I often forget to practice drawing when I am painting, and drawing is a little like singing and running. If you do not practise regularly, your eye and hand coordination will suffer. I can see that clearly with my first drawings here. 

I took this photo to include in my video I made of the first day I started to draw for Inktober.

2nd of October. Eider. Ink in my art journal. I rather like this idea, and I will use this idea for a painting. Watercolour or acrylics and oil I wonder?

3rd of October. Great Crested Grebe. Here it is obvious that my drawing skills really need some work. The grebe to the left is totally out of proportions. I do like the colours though. Grebes are a great subject when you want to paint with limited colours. Black, grey and a reddish brown are all you need...

4th of October. Another approach to painting a grebe. This time totally in black and white. The water was interesting to paint. I did miss my oil colours while painting the bird though. That just shows that drawing like this doesn't come naturally to me. But getting into a habit of drawing every day, it hopefully will become like second nature to me!

5th of October. Today's effort. I had planned to paint only a little splash of colour behind the sparrows, but I got carried away and ended up colouring in the whole background. I really do like the composition of the birds and branches though so this may be an idea to take further!

I wish you all a great weekend!