Tag: black and white

Inktober 2022

~ Ari October ~ 1 Comment


To view all 31 illustrations, click here to visit the Google Drive folder!

Well folks, I did it. 31 illustrations in 31 days. Some took several days to complete, some of them I only spent a few minutes on. Either way, I got it done. Now I am exhausted and never want to look at another micron pen for the rest of my life! (Just kidding.) I’ve already complained enough about how hard this was in the previous post, so I will focus on the positives now.

I really did learn a lot from this challenge, and even walked away with more confidence in my abilities! The prompts helped me come up with ideas I never would have thought of on my own, and I got several illustrations I love out of the deal. Noticing which illustrations I enjoyed making the most was very enlightening, and I will definitely be using that knowledge going forward.

For the record, I got most of my references from Pexels and Unsplash. Some were also referenced from my own photos, (such as the shed,) and a few were referenced from my imagination or memories! Another thing I’ve learned from this challenge is just how important building a visual library through mileage is. The more you draw from seeing, the more you’ll be able to draw from muscle memory! I’ve found that I really like drawing my own memories.

While I’m really grateful that I finally completed Inktober for the first time, I’m not sure it’s something I’m going to do every year. By the time next October rolls around I’m sure I’ll be considering trying again, but I will be more willing to drop it if I feel it is doing me more harm than good.

If you have any questions or comments about any of the illustrations, please feel welcome to leave a comment! Thanks for stopping by, I hope you have a wonderful day!

Blind Contour Baby Birdie

~ Ari October ~ 1 Comment
My daughter, known as Birdie to the internet for the sake of maintaining anonymity, is a very fun and interesting subject to doodle! Babies are weird. Crazy anatomy.

Haven’t posted in a while, though I’ve been meaning to, so in the meantime I offer up these!

Blind contour drawings are an excellent exercise for improving hand-eye coordination and observational skills, as well as a fun way to warm up by making some unapologetically “bad” art!

I love to do these as sketchbook fillers. However, these two in particular were actually sketched on my Boogie Board. It’s reminiscent of my old magnetic drawing board I had as a kid, but completely different technology.

I love how temporary it is, everything can be erased so quickly with the touch of a button. Because of this, I can make lots of crappy doodles without worrying about wasting paper. But when I make something I happen to like, as shown above, I just save it using the Jot Boogie Board app.

(This is not an advertisement, this post is not sponsored, I just like to be specific about what I use! If you feel like buying one after reading this though I’d honestly recommend just getting a kid’s magnetic drawing toy, they’re cheaper and in my experience a bit more fun! After my No Buy is over I might pick one up myself…)

Waiting room doodles!

~ Ari October ~ Leave a comment

Since I’m nearing the end of my pregnancy, I’ve been having loads of doctor’s appointments. At this point it’s a weekly occurrence, so that means lots of time spent waiting in the waiting room, and then waiting in the office between being triaged and actually seeing the doctor. The best way to pass the time is to whip out my tiny sketcher and just doodle the minutes away!

Momdala

~ Ari October ~ 2 Comments
My mom works with kids so she collects a lot of coloring pages, so I decided to turn this one into a coloring page before coloring it myself.
The finished watercolor piece that is now hanging in my mom’s bedroom 🙂

This piece is from October 2019. I made it for my mom in celebration of her 22 years of sobriety on November 19th 2019 🙂 She loves burgundy and silver so I knew I had to incorporate those somehow. I used primarily watercolor but the silver was done with gel pen.

2020-3-20

~ Ari October ~ Leave a comment
A free coloring page for all to enjoy 🙂
I also have a google drive folder containing all my free coloring pages!

This mandala was completed on March 20th 2020, thus named after it’s completion date.
I am not the best at naming my works so generally I just don’t.
I used a circle template tool when designing this mandala, which is also something I don’t do all the time. I draw a lot of mandalas 100% free hand, oftentimes out of pure laziness.
I do love how round and symmetrical they turn out when I do use templates though.

If you ever decide to color this, I would love to see your work! 😉