Inktober 2021: First Half

I think this is my fourth? fifth? year of participating in inktober, and my third year or #mabsdrawlloweenclub. This year I finally dropped the bad idea of doing the drawing on the day of instead of starting ahead. So while I’m posting in order, I worked on several pieces ahead of their post date. Life being life, I haven’t been doing every single day. You will be able to see in this set of new pieces that I am working in a very specific style. Day 15 I actually completed in September. It took over a week and I had help from a couple of friends, as I had never drawn landscapes before. Okay not entirely true, but these are a little more refined. Turns out, I don’t totally know how to draw, and before you start shouting at me, know that there are certain relevant skills I just didn’t have. Being self-taught (with help from my visual artist friends), I am learning new things with every piece. I love the challenge of Inktober, but I have to be honest here: I am not having the usual ease of ideas (or getting ideas from my usual suspects on twitter). I was super excited about this year’s prompts, because they are more vague and open to interpretation. I love to go weird. Or abstract or obtuse. One of my main tenants of art is to subvert in subtle ways. This is how I approach fashion design as well. Inspiration comes from all directions, wends its way through my imagination (which is full of tangents), and pops out on the other side. As much as I have struggled with some of the concepts, I think I came up with some strong pieces. Today, I’m stuck on SPELL, that is tomorrow’s prompt. Let’s see if I make it or skip it. If I come up with an idea later, that’s fine too. If you have a suggestion leave it in the comments.

Day one: MONSTER SELF PORTRAIT

I chose Death in the form of the yokai Bakeneko. She has three flaming tails, is surrounded by asphodel and a dead bird lays at her feet. Her cataract eyes are inked in with clear glittery ink to give her an otherworldly look. Death is about transformation; a phoenix arisen from the ashes. Part of our full life cycle, part of many lifecycles within that. I wavered on the dead bird. It works best for the piece (that’s why it’s there), but I worried about reenforcing peoples’ negative views about cats. I don’t usually reveal much of the stories in my artwork; it’s up to the viewer. In this instance, I don’t think this cat killed that bird. It was already dead, and needed to be ushered on.

8 x 8 inches black, blood red and clear sparkle ink on italian hot press paper

Day two: HAUNTED

Pretty self-explanatory. Not a particularly scary haunting, but who knows about those butterflies. They *could* be murder butterflies.

8 x 8 inches black ink on italian hot press paper.

Day three: WITCH

6 x 6 inches black ink on italian hot press paper

Day four: NIGHT CIRCUS

Who would be presenting, performing in or attending a night circus? Raccoons.

8 x 8 inches black and clear glitter ink on italian hot press paper

Day 5: CRYPTID

FeeGee Mermaid. If you live in the PNW and have been to Seattle or Long Beach, they each have a curio shop/tourist trap that has these. I remember going to the one in Long Beach and staring at these things with both fear and fascination. Turns out, these are basically a creepy taxidermy where the top half or a monkey is sewn to the bottom half of a fish. True fact: I didn’t ink this dude in, because he creeped me out!

6 x 6 inches pencil on italian hot press watercolour paper

Day six: SALAMANDER

If you are unfamiliar, salamander is the fire elemental (their counterparts are sylphs of the air, undines of the water and gnomes of the earth). Who could resist a flaming axolotl?

6 x 6 inches black ink on italian hot press paper

Day ten: WINGED

Land bat. I live with this thing. It doesn’t have literal wings, but this is probably what they’d look like if she did. Probably.

6 x 6 inches black ink on italian hot press paper

Day fifteen: FAIRYTALE

Little red riding hood. A small white cat adorned in a red cape with her little basket of daggers. Instead of a trail of breadcrumbs, we have a trail of daggers. Not sure what all of this means; she just popped into my head one morning. This piece I actually drew in September (sshhhh don’t tell). I had help with the shadows cast by the trees in the moonlight. I would have had no idea how to do this (one of those technical things I lacked the skills for until now!) i’m pretty pleased how this one turned out.

8 x 8 inches black, red and clear glitter ink on italian hot press paper

Day sixteen: MYTHOLOGICAL

Baba Yaga’s hut. Most people think of Greek or Roman mythology, but there is a lot more mythology out there. So many regional stories exist too. I decided to make this one in the style of a ruined Japanese house. Its red doors beckon, the skulls serve as a warning. The eyes are watching to see what you are going to do. I wouldn’t want to piss off this hut; there’s no telling what could happen.

This managed to be a landscape without having to deal with much in the way of light or shadow. The sky and clouds are stippled. It took forever. If you aren’t familiar with stippling, it is where you use dots from the pen to create shading. This piece took forever. Or it felt like it took forever.

8 x 8 black and red ink on italian hot press paper.

WHEW!

As you can see, i didn’t do every single day. Quality over quantity, right?