After the annoying commercialisation of #Inktober (google around for more on that story and why a lot of artists won't be taking part this year) I figured it was time to try something different for this year's 31-pieces-of-art challenge. There are so many art list prompts for #Sketchtober (the competing month-long doodle-off) that it's too confusing to feel any sense of 'community' (again, curse you Cory for putting a hole through #Inktober for that precise reason) so what a lot of folk are doing is coming up with their own lists, and their own commitment to draw something every day.
So here's my list...
Far from being a 'comfy easy' list though, this covers a lot of things I don't usually draw. Google for each of these and you'll find their definitions. For example. a Nuckelavee is a conjoined horse and rider, a weird swamp-dwelling water spirit. If there's one thing all artists fear more than anything else it's drawing horses (I myself can just about draw a workable horse head but the rest of it? Nahh!)
Visual problem solving (or by its less posh name, doodling) works your brain like nothing else. If I have hours at my disposal (on the very rare occasions other stuff isn't getting in the way) I can pick up a pencil and a sketchpad and chip away at this list, or other doodle challenges (usually culled from Twitter - favourites at the moment are #PortraitChallenge, #ShapeChallenge, #FinishTheScribble, sometimes #ColourCollective and #MythicalMashup if you want a bunch of hashtags to get you started). Sarah McIntyre over at @studioteabreak does a fantastic job of curating a bunch of these, and tweeting / retweeting the best of them every week (my art doesn't feature very often so go figure!)
Drawing is immensely satisfying, calming and relaxing for me though I would readily admit that "getting better at drawing stuff" is the ultimate aim rather than turning it into any sort of a serious commercial venture (some folk say that if you work doing something you love, you'll never work a day in your life. My philosophy is that something you do for fun should always remain fun. Doing it at someone else's demand / behest sounds like a nightmare and a fair few artist / illustrator buddies will attest to this too - they always do their best work when they're working for themselves rather than for anyone else).
I do love conceptual drawing though. Being given a brief description of the mythical creatures above lets your imagination take over. It's too, too tempting to google for images for these but instead drop on over to Wikipedia and do a search instead, and you'll usually get a description of the creatures rather than a prompt-spoiling picture to copy / work from / be influenced by.
For example with the Nuckelavee Wikipedia says:
The nuckelavee ( /nʌklɑːˈviː/) or nuckalavee is a horse-like demon from Orcadian mythology that combines equine and human elements. It has its origins in Norse mythology, and British folklorist Katharine Briggs called it "the nastiest"[1] of all the demons of Scotland's Northern Isles. The nuckelavee's breath was thought to wilt crops and sicken livestock, and the creature was held responsible for droughts and epidemics on land despite being predominantly a sea-dweller.
Interestingly, reading about the Nuckelavee in a book, the artist had chosen NOT to draw it looking like the traditional view of a centaur (ie human torso in place of the horse's head) but had actually drawn a fused horse with rider - which was the direction I started out in too (besides...Centaurs are bloody hard to draw, maybe I should've stuck one of them on the list instead!!)
Let's pick another more obscure one...The Rakshasa
Rakshasas were most often depicted as shape-shifting, fierce-looking and enormous creatures, with two fangs protruding from the top of the mouth and having sharp, claw-like fingernails. They are shown as being mean, growling like beasts, and as insatiable man-eaters that could smell the scent of human flesh. Some of the more ferocious ones were shown with flaming red eyes and hair, drinking blood with their palms or from a human skull (similar to representations of vampires in later Western mythology). Generally they could fly, vanish, and had maya (magical powers of illusion), which enabled them to change size at will and assume the form of any creature. The female equivalent of rakshasa is rakshasi.[3]
Lots of potential there but actually very little in the way of an actual physical description, just lots of elements that you can spin your designer brain around to come up with your own version of the Rakshasa.Creature design is immensely satisfying because it polishes skills I really want to polish. Anatomy, always a challenge. Facial construction and facial expressions. Animal drawing (my god, if you think trying to draw a pair of legs on a human is hard, trying to draw horse's legs is flipping nightmarish!)
My sketches will just be that. So many times in the monthly art challenges, you see artists posting work that is obviously polished to the nth degree as "Just something I knocked out during a coffee break" despite the image being obviously over-produced to the point where it'd slide quite nicely into an actual book. My aim is to take away the pressure of trying to complete finished works of art but just to knock out contact sheets, hopefully with many, many different designs for each prompt - then later on to take a month's worth of work, pick the ones I like best and THEN apply the gloss to 'em.
I don't know where my artistic talent (the meagre bit I've got) comes from, though I suspect it's from my dad's side of the family. He could draw (and draw well, the bastard!) as could both of my uncles - in fact my Uncle Chris made quite a comfy sum out of reproducing classic paintings at one point in his life (before he died). My Great, Great, Great uncle used to draw political cartoons for Punch Magazine, so maybe a bit of that seeped into my DNA at some point (I really love working with pen and ink so you never know!)
Drawing every day is vital though. Even if you draw something that's terribly shite, it's easy to move on and work on something else. I have sketchbooks dotted around the house that I often cull or rip pages out of and bin, purely because it's the process I'm more involved in and interested in, rather than developing and keeping finished bits of art I'll never display.
Whatever your choice in October, whether you choose to work from the official Inktober prompts, the Sketchtober stuff or (hah) if you fancy joining me, hit me up on Twitter either as @Peejmaybe or @readitdaddy, I'd love to see your work!
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