For the final week of #INKtober, I did a rabbit at twilight. The sky and light green ground was painted with acrylic wash, but everything else was done in various types of pens and art markers.In fact, I used more kinds of pens in this one than previous drawings. Outlining everything in black and the flat colors was an attempt to get a story book feel in this piece.

I'm happy that I was able to meet the challenge of doing all 5 drawings over the month for my first time in INKtober.I learned a lot and am pleased that I have more small pictures than expected for the upcoming craft shows. Now that I know this is a yearly project, next year I hope to be prepared ahead of time, with prelims done & transferred, instead of doing everything in a rush. But all in all, it was a satisfying experience!

My project for this week is a mountain goat, which lives in herds, mainly in the Rockies of North America. Their feet are similar to suction cups to enable them to keep their footing on the cliffs and ledges of their mountain homes. The sky is an acrylic wash, but the rest is done with Micron pens and art markers on 5"x7" Bristol board. I haven't drawn one of these goats in awhile, so it was interesting working with the different shapes.

My drawing for the third week is a profile of a black rhino on grey toned paper. Though I've used the paper with pastels & pencils, I didn't know if ink would would work or if the lines would blur. But there was enough sizing in the paper to keep the marks crisp, which was a pleasant surprise. I think I overdid all the lines in trying to show the wrinkly skin, so I hope it didn't ruin the picture.

My second INKtober project came out a bit darker than intended. It's a grey squirrel running through a forest in early spring, before the leaves have appeared on the trees. There's a few mistakes that I had to fix, which added to the time it took to do. I've drawn squirrels in this same common pose before, but it's interesting to put different elements in the background and change the seasons. Squirrels are one of my favorite animals, so it's always a treat to draw them. As before, this was done with Micron pens and art markers on 5"x7" Bristol Board.

Yesterday, while reading one of the art blogs I subscribe to, I saw that there's an art project that is similar to NaNoWriMo, the writing challenge that many published & unpublished authors take part in every November, where the goal is to write so many words per day, with the object of having written most of a novel by month's end. The one for artists began in 2009 and focuses on creating a certain number of ink drawings during the month of October and is called INKtober. There are several speeds one can do according to the official rules, which are based on running terms. The top category is to do a drawing every day, which is way out of my league. The half marathon is to do a drawing every other day, which is still more than I can handle with my arthritis and stamina. The 5K is more my speed, which is to do a drawing every week, ending up with 5 at the end of the month. I decided to try doing that and will be posting my projects every weekend until the deadline. All of my drawings will be small, 5" x 7", larger sizes would take me much longer, so this is more practical.
This is the drawing for Week #1, a young polar bear done in Micron pens, with the background design, which is intended to resemble wind whisps, made of grey felt tip art markers. It's done on Bristol board, a thick drawing paper that is my favorite surface for ink and mixed media.