So, amid the craziness of packing to move from Toronto to Calgary, I also participated in Inktober 2018. I didn’t complete the challenge this year, but it’s understandable. I mean, my life was pretty much upside down and my creative juices were depleted. I didn’t have the energy to think up anything to draw, so I followed the official prompts.

Still, I love Inktober and will be back in 2019.

This year was all about trying new things. Of all the art media I’ve used before, ink is by far my weakest suit. For that reason, I didn’t have any inhibitions and experimented with pointillism, cross-hatching, and stylised landscapes, at first just with fineliner pens and Sharpies.

My uneven linework bothered the hell out of me. Every wobble and shake shows when you don’t know what you’re doing with fineliners, and for someone as neurotic as me, this isn’t a good thing.

A good friend, Stacey, suggested that I try working with ballpoint pens instead, which made a world of difference. It’s possible to achieve complex shading and a variety of line weights, a lot like working with pencils.

At some point near the end of my Inktober run, I combined ballpoints, fineliners, and Sharpies to test the outcomes I could achieve when using different inking tools together. I loved this so much. The Sharpies coloured backgrounds in the most uniform way, but could be shaded with ballpoint pens to give an almost 3D result. I still struggle to get clean lines with the fineliners, but will keep working on this. I can also guarantee I’ll be purchasing a pot of ink and a brush in the near future. I’ll be ready, come October 2019. 🙂

If you want to see more of my art or the random things with which I occupy myself, you can always follow me on Instagram.

Until next time.

Yolandie.