Fen the Bonebreaker

Day 9-12: Nocturnal Animals

Nibling #5's contributions

Santa put a sketch-a-day book in my stocking (and the stockings of my sibling and niblings #3, 5, and 6), so I guess I'm doing that this year. Can't let Santa down. Nibling #5 is the artsy one and is my accountability partner and person I cheat off of when I'm uninspired.

#96 Cane Toad (Rhinella marina)

#95 Pastel Mushrooms

Needed a change from all this monochrome, so I dug out the oil pastels that someone gifted me last year and gave them a whirl. Definitely a medium that will take some practice to get nice results. I really should have worked on this at my desk instead of sitting in a recliner, because I couldn't get the pressure to get really thick layers.

I found it hard to switch to working in color and even harder to work without a outline. Even when I use watercolors, I mix them with pen. Color art without outlines is probably something I should work on.

#94 Sea Sponge

#93 Squash and Pumpkin

#92 The Second Worst Way to Wake Up

So my Halloween movies this year were Alien & Aliens (it's been a stupid amount of time since i've seen the first one) and I did this over the next two days.

I liked learning to use the dip pen, and using inkwash (though that's still kind of unpredictable for me). Did NOT like relying on the pen for shading. My crosshatching skills are just not up to snuff and I keep getting frustrated. I think I also need to be bolder and use a deeper range of greys. I kept having to use multiple layers to build up darker tones that I should have been able to get in one go.

Biggest annoyance was actually the paper size. I've run into this problem before and the 5"x8" dimensions were seriously cramping me at time. I'm going to complete the remaining 17 pages of the notebook (with more ink work), but after that I'm going to have to source some 6"x9" or even 8"x10" sketchbooks.

Favorite pieces I did this month were baobab, crow, underground, beaver, rhinoceros, and catacombs. I felt a definite improvement over the course of the month, so yay!

Inktober #31 Catacombs

Inktober #30 Violin

Inktober #29 Platypus

So one of my niblings drew a Platypus (Ornithorhynchus anatinus) for Inktober (although her picture started out as a blue whale... something, somewhere went dramatically wrong) and I thought that would be a great subject to draw.

Inktober #28 Rhinoceros

Inktober #27 Beaver

Every single time in my life that I've seen signs of beaver activity, I've thoroughly checked the area for an actual beaver (Castor canadensis). All to no avail.

Until this month.

Inktober #26 Zest

And I am done with my alphabetical prompts! Now on to.... something. Hm. (¬_¬")

This picture reminded me of how much I loathe still life drawing. I smudged the lines pretty badly, and ended up shading the lemons with a much darker wash than planned in an attempt to cover it up.

Inktober #25 Yellowstone

I've used Yellowstone as a prompt before, but at the time I had a hard time picking what to paint as there were so many wonderful vistas! So Yellowstone gets a second whirl around. (i really need to find a way to visit one of these years)

Inktober #24 Xeric Shrubland

This was actually the first prompt I can up with when I decided to use alternative prompts for Inktober.

Me: Let'd do an alphabetical set of prompts!

Also Me: ****. X. **********.

Still Me: x... x... x.... XERIC SHRUBLAND!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Mojave Desert, USA.

Inktober #23 Water

Water Bear!!!!!