#prink

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Does anyone remember at the tail end of yesterday's description that I said today's word was one I'd been really looking forward to?

Well, (as implied by the short caption) that was incorrect—I had actually jumped ahead and was thinking of tomorrow's word and continued to do so right up until I went to grab the definition and get started today.

Note the phrasing there: Thankfully, I start each of these art pieces with the definition in the center so I have a better idea of what space I have to work with for the mandala rounds, and because the words are new-to-me, I still have to consult the definition list. SO I found out I'd been thinking of the wrong word before I'd made any actual art progress! 😅 I was thinking this would be one of next week's words!

Note the phrasing there: Thankfully, I start each of these art pieces with the definition in the center so I have a better idea of what space I have to work with for the mandala rounds, and because the words are new-to-me, I still have to consult the definition list. SO I found out I'd been thinking of the wrong word before I'd made any actual art progress!

Ergo, my word mix-up wasn't quite the catastrophe it could have been. 😮‍💨

I had already spent several minutes looking up inspiration that was related to tomorrow's word, so it felt strange to have to so strongly pivot my line of thinking, but I'd certainly rather have to do that than realize I'd made completely the wrong piece of art for the day...And then still have to turn around and make the right one. 😖

With that in mind, once I actually had the correct word in mind, I was pretty worried the outcome was going to be another bag of mixed feelings like yesterday was...And yet, I'm actually very pleasantly surprised with what I managed to put together here. 😁

I'm not quite ready to say the whole package is my new favorite, but the color scheme is definitely one of my favorites so far, and I at least like today's line work much better than yesterday's, or a couple of my other "least favorites" of the month so far. Considering how I started out, that's a win in my book!

So then, "Prink": My thoughts, as might be obvious, went mostly to sort of an idealized "old" Hollywood headspace. I definitely wanted to get a dress in there somewhere—That was at least one thing I knew more or less from the beginning of the month, after the list was finalized and I had mostly settled on the mandalas as my method of attack, that Prink would be "needing" a dress.

I went with a very [in my mind] stereotypical "glam dress"—Sparkly, probably satin, with a fur stole/boa—in part because it was easier to draw than a lot of other options would have been...But also because for me that kind of dress just does feel like a "careful but showy" fashion choice, and it kind of fits right in with a lot of the other imagery that was coming to mind: Gaudy jewelry (my favorite kind!), pearls, those backstage dressing mirrors framed by circular lights, red carpet events, expensive perfume....etc...

...And that's basically how my exact thought process went right there. 😆; One vague idea/symbol of celebrity "prinking" after another. Really the only thing that—perhaps surprisingly—didn't immediately come to mind was the suit/tuxedo, but I thought to add it in because it would be a little more variety than just repeating the dress around, and I later realized it fits as a subtle reminder that "prinking and primping" aren't exclusively to femininity.

Likewise, the color scheme is mostly what I'd consider stereotypical for a lot of this imagery. Except the hot pink and dark blue are a step off; More stereotypical, at least to me, would be red and black. Since I'd gotten myself psyched up for a very different word and had started out kind of disappointed, though, I tweaked the colors to what would personally be more visually exciting to me. And you'll remember that I said this is definitely one of my favorite Obscutober color schemes so far, so that both worked and I think was the right choice.

It's funny how I feel like I had even less ideas for how to tie the individual ideas together today than I did yesterday, and yet I'm so much happier with what I cobbled together. Things just seemed to flow much better from one idea to the next, and I'm not really sure why. Especially since I did start out with such a different mindset and have to change course so quickly. 🤔

I'm definitely not complaining, though!

Really the only thing I could say I'm not terribly happy with here is that it doesn't "feel" very mandala-ish. As in a lot of the lines here really are just small doodles that could be "normal" drawings on their own, they're not really composed thy way mandala motifs normally are. But, if I'm being fair and realistic with myself, this certainly isn't the first mandala of the month you can say that about. It might even be fair to say most of them have been like that, even. I think maybe it just sticks out a bit more here because I would normally think of drawing clothes so completely separately from drawing mandalas.

Perfume bottles, too, for what it's worth. And if the perfume bottle or the proportions on the suit look a little funky, here's my excuses right now; I don't think I've ever drawn a perfume bottle before and it's been a very long time since I've attempted to draw anything resembling a suit, and it was definitely not in a more simple doodle style like this. 😅 There was much small-scale learning done here today!

Let's see...I think the only thing I haven't mentioned yet is that you can see I opted to do considerably more stippling here than I think any other mandala has gotten so far. That was a very conscious choice because I've found before that stippling can be a pretty good stand-in for a glitter effect when you're trying to not get too complicated with coloring. It didn't quite "glitter" the way I'd pictured here, but I also didn't really go out of my way to help it in the coloring department, either. But I still stand by the decision to use stippling the way I did.

[And oh look, that example I linked is probably the last time I attempted to draw something like a suit...five years ago...]

In conclusion: I pretty significantly underestimated myself today...But I kind of needed to, after yesterday, I think. It feels so much better to have gone into this one so uncertain and turn out so much more satisfied with it.

I feel like I've said that same thing like five times with different words now, but if I have it's only because I am still so surprised and in that way it really can't be overstated.

[Once I realized I had my words/days mixed up] I was already feeling pretty good about what I'll be able to do for tomorrow's word, but I think now I have a little bit of confidence back that I'd lost yesterday, so I'm looking even more forward to it than before. 😉

So, in the end, maybe it was a good thing I got my words mixed up? I just hope I don't do it again, because while I maybe-needed the bait-and-switch this time, it very easily could've turned out much, much worse. 😅

...I can say I'm not looking forward to cross-posting because (as I complained a bit about yesterday, too) Instagram keeps giving me stupid problems when I come around to it specifically—And it gets saved for as-close-to-last-as-possible for that reason!—but then again, do I ever look forward to that? Not really!

Oh well. Has to be done. [In my mind, anyway.] So I'll leave you Sparklers here and get on with that for today. Here's hoping tomorrow comes out at least this nicely, if not even better... 🤞

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Artwork © me, MysticSparklewings

Obscutober Concept Inspired by nikolas_tower

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