I was determined to finish all the 31 days of inking the last Inktober. I prepared sheets of paper, folded and collated into a notebook, fixed them with a paper clip, noted down the prompts by Jake Parker, and I was ready. I wanted to sketch for all the 31 days this year. So I decided not to go very fancy, and to stick to minimal amount of sketching so that I don't burn out and not sketch any more. Here are the Inktober prompts given by Jake Parker.
Most of my sketches are a result of search in Google Images and copying them. There are a few though that I have sketched from imagination. Now, let's dive in!
1. POISONOUS
I found it odd that quite a few of the prompts had negative meaning. But only thing I could I remember for the prompt "poisonous" was a snake, and here it is, snake with head up, sniffing with its tongue.
This is a sketch from imagination. Although it was a sketch with less lines, and I finished it with little effort, sketching the ripples in the pond felt nice.
I was not able to imagine much for the context of "roasted" and quickly drew some roasted almonds. The default color matched with the color of almonds. But, I felt the lack of a sense of accomplishment, which kind of got repeated for the next few sketches.
4. SPELL
How can I hear the word "spell" and not think of the Harry Potter series? I did not have any picture in particular in mind. I googled for the word, and selected the picture that I liked. Although Emma Watson looked amazing in the original picture, it was from an awkward angle, and I struggled to get the features right. I messed up her mouth badly. Note to self: practice sketching mouths and teeth of people.
5. CHICKEN
Well, "Chicken" was a very straightforward prompt. I searched google images for chicken, and picked the image I liked the most. I loved how it turned out, a nice composition worth framing.
6. DROOLING
I knew I wanted to sketch a baby drooling. But Google kept giving me images of dogs drooling. It took me a little bit of searching before I could find an image that I liked. It was both fun and challenging to sketch a baby.
7. EXHAUSTED
Ha! I had fun sketching this one. I tried my best to imagine my workspace and me taking a nap out of exhaustion. I think the proportions could be better, I am happy how it is able to capture the emotion. When I shared this picture in Instagram, it managed to evoke reaction from quite a few people. Looks like I am not the only one who constantly feels exhausted.
8. STAR
I think it took me a while to decide what to sketch for the prompt "star". I did not have tools to ink stars in an entire night sky since I was traveling. Frankly, I found it boring. After pondering for a while, the idea of sketching the 5-stars came to me like lighting a bulb. I was excited and proud of the idea! Even though in terms sketching it is trivial, I am willing to sell this sketch the most out of all the sketches I did in this Inktober. Before the technological revolution happened, the term "star" was used in a very few social annotations: celebrities popular with masses, and rating to hotels and restaurants. Online business systems adapted the rating system, and it is prevalent through all the online business forums.
The 5-star system is used to moderate the quality of a business by aggregating information from the users. In its essence, it is very democratic and in my opinion it is a good measure for maintaining the quality of businesses. If you are someone who uses technology a lot, you know how much we use it. We rate places we visit, movies we watch, drivers we ride with (and drivers rate us), apps we use, products we buy, and the list goes on. In a 5-star rating system, anything below 4 is average or not good. So everyone who is subjected to the rating strives towards 5. And it is shaping the overall attitude of both consumers and providers. For example, a driver cannot cheat the customer to a longer route to a destination. Just dropping the passenger is not enough; s/he needs to be polite and occasionally be able to engage in interesting conversation. A passenger is not doing any favour to the driver. They need to behave themselves too; being late, being rude, or being intoxicated is not an option any more. I am yet to find a side-effect of it; but I certainly think it is a very good system to maintain the integrity of services.
9. PRECIOUS
I have never watched the "Lord of the rings" (Fans, please don't hate me!). But I am somewhat familiar with the ugly old creature called Gollum. No matter what I tried to come up with, I could not. I had to sketch Gollum. But, I hated sketching the ugly thing. I wanted to quickly finish it and get done with it. Yuk! My haste and disinterest shows in the sketch. Ya, this is a sketch I am not proud of.
10. FLOWING
I am glad I had something nice to sketch in the next prompt. I did ponder over different concepts, but quickly made up my mind to sketch a waterfall. I explored a few images on Google and converged on this one. Trying to capture the fluidity and transparency of water with just a brush-pen was challenging. I was immersed in doing this one and am happy the way it turned out.
Although I had started sketching one sketch every day, by this time, I had started sketching 2 to 3 sketches in a day with a gap of few days. I was already 9 days late, yet I was not feeling concerned. Having to stick to a timetable was annoying and boring. It felt more fulfilling to draw them all together in a span of few days. But I held on.
More on my next Inktober sketches, coming soon!
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