For several years I have seen posts for Inktober on Twitter. And each of those years I have thought that that would be cool to do, one year, sometime. This year as October approached, I decided I would participate in Inktober. I was all set to do this, I had pictures for ideas laid out, and chose a sketchbook that was empty to use just for this. I did my first ink drawing for day one and then, I saw something indicating there was some sort of controversy about Inktober and instead people are doing Drawtober.
I don’t know if there is a formal format for Drawtober. It appears that for Inktober there is a list of prompts for the topic for each day. So, if you are doing Inktober you are supposed to follow that format or plan. As I understand it. I’m not 100% certain because, I haven’t bothered to actually look any of this up. And, again, I’m not sure about Drawtober, either.
What prompted me to decide to try one of these activities? I liked the idea that for every day I would do a drawing, or some might call it a sketch. I liked the idea of a short period of time that I had to be disciplined and draw every day. I felt this would be a good way to exercise my drawing skills. And hopefully, get back into the habit of drawing. For me that is important because when I finish a bigger, or more involved piece, like the Leaf I did recently, I tend to get stuck trying to decide what to work on next and then I don’t do anything. So, to keep me drawing and making art, I am doing my version of Drawtober. For every day this month I have been doing a small drawing of something.
Things started out a little rough and tentative. I didn’t know what to draw. I started with ink because at first, I was doing Inktober. I quickly switched to pencil, my preferred medium when I decided I would do Drawtober. I started out trying to create drawings of things from memory or imagination. A couple of things came out reasonably good. A couple of things didn’t. And then one night I decided I wanted to draw a Puffin but, since I didn’t have a good memory of the details, I pulled up a reference photo. As you might expect, it made a big difference.
And even though I had set aside some reference pictures for ideas of things to draw it wasn’t until then that it really occurred to me that I didn’t have to do just sketchy work, or sort of wonky work, or even just stuff from my imagination for this. I could use references and make nicer, and more accurate pieces, even if they were quick and small. The sketchbook I’m using is 5.5 inches by 8.5 inches. Which for me is small. My favorite size sketchbook is 9 inches by 9 inches.
Once I latched onto the idea of using reference photos, I started looking for more things to draw from. I found a couple of photos in my collection that I felt comfortable using for this project. And then I had to go digging for more pictures. A key to what I draw for this is that I want it to be not too involved or complicated. I want to be able to finish it in one evening, and preferrable within about an hour. So far, I only have one, maybe two that might have taken a little longer than an hour.
I have a couple of books that have turned out to be great reference for this project. One is on frogs. I purchased it a few years ago for something I was going to do, but I don’t remember what that was. The other is a book gifted to me decades ago by my friend in Australia. It is a book on the birds of Australia. As a result, I’ve been drawing a lot of frogs and birds. I’ve gotten better at both. And I’ve gotten better at proportion and placement of details on both. Which seems to be translating to other species. I’ve done a few of the birds and frogs in color. The color can be fun as well as challenging. I’m using colored pencil and while I do get close most of the time, and even good results most of the time, some things I don’t get quite right. It is great practice regardless.
I have included a few of the drawings for your enjoyment.
