ArtisticMoods.com

I’ve been enjoying and sharing other people’s work for so long but never seem to find the time to get my own hands busy. That’s why, last month, I started off my very personal Crafty Moods Project. I will pick a random material material (paper, paint, fabric and everything in between) every month which I will use to make my own illustrations. One year, every month, I will share the results on the blog. Scary!

This month I decided to join Inktober. I got very inspired by sketches of other people I spotted on Instagram, so I sketched along with them. I bought two tiny pencils, a little jar of Indian ink and got busy. I sketched, doodled, experimented, messed up, started over again and I had a great time doing all this.

The thing about black Indian ink is that it doesn’t cheat. Once you apply it, it’s there. It won’t crawl anywhere else, like watercolor paint does sometimes, but there’s no chance in a lifetime you’ll ever get it off  the spot once you’ve put it there. So I had to do a lot of sketching in preparation and be very precisely. Two things I don’t have too much experience with. I went wrong at many points (mostly eyes and patterns) but although that was frustrating in the beginning, I eventually learned to relax, play with whatever weird doodle I had accidentally splashed on the paper and just move on. That’s when the real fun began.

Here’s what I painted:

Two girls from the back (avoiding the eye-drawing)

Some animals (felt sorry for the dog while drawing him)

Some plants (loved doing the vases)

Negative spaces (pretty tricky, but fun)

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A Girl who doesn’t know what to draw next (because I didn’t know what to draw next)

A black & white room (So I could practice many tiny details)