Inktober 2018! I did it!
Yes yes I know, I didn’t exactly adhere to the rules but I DID start and finished with Copic Multiliner black and Dr. Ph. Martin white. And then I colored them all in with colored pencils.
The point really was to challenge myself. I decided to work on storytelling by aligning the Inktober prompt words with scenes from Shakespeare’s plays. Limiting the space to 2 x 3 inches helped me to work on improving perspectives, angles, and framing without feeling overwhelmed by a big blank piece of paper. I was also able to gauge how long a full color illustration this size took to finish. A few risks – as in “stop thinking about it and just go for it!” payed off and my confidence level improved. I think I still need to simplify a little, fine-tune my color choices and keep practicing techniques. I also noticed my character’s eyeballs are not consistent from piece to piece but seem to work with the mood of what I was drawing. I did manage 31 drawings in 31 days so I’m feeling pretty pleased with myself.
I also learned a bit about words and Shakespeare. Many of the prompt words were not common vernacular in Shakespeare’s time, only dating back to the early 1800’s. Some words were in use but meant something completely different, and Shakespeare actually invented one of the words!
All of my Inktober illustrations are in the gallery below, but I’m arguing with the technology trying to caption them. For now, I can have a slideshow or I can have captions. So I gave up and just went with slideshow, although hovering over the thumbnails will show you the keywords and quotes. If you’d like to learn more about the individual illustrations, each of my Instagram posts contains the Inktober prompt word, the name of the play and quote that I illustrated and some other microbloggy details on the hashtag, #inktobershakespeare.
As always, all of my pieces are available for purchase as originals, prints, or greeting cards. Just ask me!
