I work best with some kind of challenge. (I have been drifting – perhaps stuck!) There are lots of challenges on Instagram and I felt the pull of a Pippi Longstocking theme for the first week of August. I will try to animate one of the daily prompts but for now I will just see how I get along.
So here’s my idea for Pippi. And there has to be a monkey, Mr Nilsson, and a horse. Oh dear ……
I have done the Inktober challenge for three or four years now and loved doing it. I enjoyed it as a daily practice and it helped me to develop style and technique with various ink media. Most of all it disproved my belief that I couldn’t begin to think of a story when I found my characters Cissie and Bea – and last year, Biskit and Mavis. And there’s the value of the Inktober community on social media which brings the opportunity to see so much of other people’s work .
But this year I have decided not to take up the Inktober challenge. Instead I have decided to devote time each day to getting to grips with stopmotion animation again.
Of course … this might mean the occasional drawing crops up – and if it fits the daily prompt … Well it might just appear here in that capacity!
Meanwhile, for those who haven’t seen this year’s prompts yet, here is the official list. Good luck and Happy Inking.
Another exercise from Mattias Adolfsson’s Domestika course “The Art of Sketching” brings me the delights of isometric perspective. I really enjoyed this one. It didn’t hurt my head half as much as linear perspective.
Would you believe that no one taught me linear perspective at art school? Though my Foundation course did give me a try at the isometric version. They supposed that we may go on to design things and could need the skill. Good for them. The Fine Art course taught me to just get on with it myself.
But then I didn’t enjoy that part of my education.
One of the exercises on the drawing course is to develop a “selfie” cartoon … a character self portrait. This caused me to use up a lot of pages in the sketch book. And to get really upset. Vanity struggles with realism. Ageing is not a good look for me, never mind the artistic challenge of frizzy grey hair.
I am doing another Domestika art course. This time it is a course by Swedish illustrator Mattias Adolfsson whose complex work has kept me fascinated … and laughing … for some years now. Very pleased to get the chance to learn from his insight on “The Art of Sketching: Transform your Doodles into Art”.
Above all this keeps me drawing every Lockdown day. And ironically is helping me overcome that dreadful “this is ART” feeling which descends upon me like a heavy, tight, Sunday Best hat.
This is a licence to play. Of course, having said that, I am already tearing my hair out.
syb & me 