Inktober 1

Inktober begins today!

Two posts in one day! But today is the first day of Inktober. What is Inktober? Every October, artists all over the world take on the Inktober drawing challenge by doing one ink drawing a day the entire month.  Started by Jake Parker you can read more about it here: https://inktober.com/   This is my ink work of a Bald Eagle as my first inktober drawing. Not sure if I can keep up to one drawing a day, but will make the attempt!
(even though the dateline above says September, it really IS October 1st today down here in Oz. We come from the future...)

Nature Journals with the Adelaide Botanical Art Group

A weekend in the beautiful Adelaide Botanic Gardens

A page of Australian native flowers from the Gardens

Study of the Bunya tree - zoom in, zoom out. There are several magnificent specimens in the Gardens.

The Adelaide Botanical Art Group invited me back this year to run a 2-day workshop in 'Nature Journaling'  with them in the gardens. The weather was beautiful, two sunny spring days. The garden looked green and lush with many native plants just starting to bloom. The wisteria arch was stunning (did not draw that). All of the group seemed to enjoy the experience and they did some excellent journal pages. Here are two of mine from the the weekend.

The Old Horse Barn

Along Hwy 101, south of Mendecino

Graphite pencil drawing on Lana cold press Aquarelle (reverse side). 

I took this photo along Hwy 101 on a recent road trip up the California and Oregon Coast. I love  old disused barns and decided to draw this one as a demonstration as 'Landscape drawing in Graphite' for my Wednesday and Friday classes. I usually use a hot press paper so working on the cold was a bit of a challenge - although I did use the slightly smoother 'wrong' side of the paper. Additionally, I do not often use paper stumps or tortillions, but I did so on this work to help blend the tones into the rougher surface and create soft tonal under layers.

2H, HB, 2B, F and 4B were used - HB/2B blended with the paper stump. 2H and HB points for sharper detail. F pencil for tonal blending and the 4B to punch in some darks. This took maybe 8 hours all up? Thereabouts. Finished size is a tad over A4.