The Inktober Retrospective Continues: 2020, Part One

Heyyy, about time, isn't it? Sorry, I've been super busy with the Big Ol' Bucket o' Useful blog, and I only have so much productivity in me. But today, I'm feeling ornery enough to post in both places, so yay! 

First of all, you were promised a finished version of the Dragon pic in my last article (here: https://allsortsartbyali.blogspot.com/2021/03/ ), which featured only a WIP (work in progress) picture of it. Here he is, in all his beastly glory! (Click on any photo to see it larger)

All right, that gets Inktober 2019 out of the way. I'm a bit behind, so without further ado, let's get on with Inktober 2020!

Day 1 “Fish” - This may remind readers “of a certain age” of Mr. Limpet, although I didn't really do the pic with him in mind. He certainly wasn't a Siamese fighting fish (not that this guy is, exactly – bettas don't have barbels); one presumes he was a limpet, after all. Also I don't believe he ever had a pipe. But don't worry—it's just a bubble pipe!

Day 2 “Wisp” - like most of these clever prompts, a "wisp" can be different things: a wisp of hair, a wisp of smoke...as usual, I did a deeper dive on the prompt, because it made me think of Will o' the wisp, which—hey--is actually where the jack o'lantern started. And, hey again, it's also related to the Japanese firefox, and, hey thirdly, the Brazilian fire serpent! So yeah, that's where all this came from. Makes a neat picture, I think.

Day 3 “Bulky” - I couldn't resist. If your mom ever bundled you up so tight in a snowsuit that you could barely move, you will understand this feeling. It was well-portrayed by Ralphie's little brother in the movie A Christmas Story.

Day 4 “Radio” - This is a pretty straightforward illustration of the concept, because I'm sentimental about it. It reminded me of my dad, who was born in the 20s and grew up listening to Big Band music and radio plays like The Shadow on a set that might have looked a good bit like this one (I used a photo of a vintage GE radio for reference). Yes, it is possible to have nostalgia for a time before you were even alive.

Stay tuned for more 2020 fun! 

Here are the prior Inktober posts, if you missed anything: 

https://allsortsartbyali.blogspot.com/2019/12/a-little-backstory-on-inktober.html

https://allsortsartbyali.blogspot.com/2020/10/inktober-2020-is-under-way.html

https://allsortsartbyali.blogspot.com/2020/11/more-fun-with-inktober.html

https://allsortsartbyali.blogspot.com/2021/03/another-shot-of-inktober-so-what-if-its.html

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Artist's Block: Does It Help with Productivity to Join an Art Group?

 

Some time back, I wrote an article about how I was really struggling to produce original work, here: https://allsortsartbyali.blogspot.com/2018/02/i-dont-know-why-its-challenge.html

I felt like I was squandering my abilities and also wasting an opportunity to practice and improve them.

Fortunately, while cruising www.meetup.com for interesting groups, I happened upon something that helped a great deal: a local art meetup group that had just formed! Remembering how much my mom, also an artist, had enjoyed participating in her local art alliance, forging lasting friendships and producing amazing public artwork, I smashed that Join button like Wonder Woman punching a Nazi.

The meetup migrated to become a Facebook group, and we had events that ended up in my meeting members of another Facebook group of artists and joining that one, as well. Both groups would meet regularly at coffee shops or brewhouses to enjoy a beverage and work on art projects. I don't attend every meetup, but when I do show up, I enjoy it immensely. There is a lot to be said for sitting with creative people, enjoying each other's company and creative vibes, just chatting, sipping, and sketching.

This has helped me become more productive even when I'm not with the groups, as well, as we frequently post our work on the groups' Facebook pages for each other to enjoy and be inspired by. I have made good friends in the groups, and that also inspires me to create for them (and prods me to work on things so that I will feel like I am “keeping up”, at least a little.

My participation in the group is what improved my participation in Inktober, for example. I knew about Inktober before joining the groups, but I had only managed to put one or two drawings out in the initial years, as can be seen here: https://allsortsartbyali.blogspot.com/2019/12/a-little-backstory-on-inktober.html

However, the members of my drawing group are very enthusiastic about participating in Inktober, and I get swept up in it, too. The weekly drawing meetups are a great opportunity to work on the Inktober drawings, and it's always inspiring to see what my friends are producing for each prompt. I've enjoyed sharing my work on Facebook with them and have even joined a few online art groups to show off my stuff. There are so many fantastic artists whose work moves and inspires me! I'm in a much better place than before, and I'm grateful to Meetup, Facebook, and my artistic friends for the support and inspiration.

Image: My drawing of Imperator Furiosa from Mad Max: Fury Road. It's not a great likeness, but I did it in fifteen minutes. It was a blitz challenge to produce as many drawings from friends' suggestions as I could until I exhausted myself. I did SIX before I hit the wall! 

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Another Shot of Inktober (So What if it's March?)

 

I hope that you have enjoyed my previous posts about Inktober (see links below, if you want to catch up), and, as promised, I am following up with another batch of prompts and what ideas they inspired in me to illustrate.

My last installment got us up to Day 9 of 2019, because I am on a very slow roll, indeed, but never fear: We can finish the whole year right now, because I did not finish the entire 31 days. I did get up to Day 14, although one of those is still in the works (yes, I said “still”. You never have to say never with art, my friends). That said, however, 14 days (okay, 13 and a half) is still a magnificent showing, compared to prior years, so: quite proud of self, really.

Day 10, “Pattern” (above; detail shown here) – I loved this prompt, because it let me indulge my doodly side, and what I like doodling is vines, among other things. A fine black Sharpie, a green highlighter pen, and a medium-point red Sharpie were all I needed to create this rambling beauty.

Day 11, “Snow” - This pic was a fairly quickly-composed pencil sketch that languished in the sketchbook for quite a while before getting inked about a year later, during Inktober 2020. I'm not crazy about how certain areas came out, but this is all just fun, so, even lame results are still results.

Day 12, “Dragon”, is currently unfinished, but it's definitely not unstarted. I did a pencil sketch, which I started inking recently. Maybe I'll get it done before Inktober starts this year, maybe I won't, but I'll endeavor to bring it to you at some point; just try to keep up with the blistering pace of my blog posts so you don't miss it. Anyway, here's a WIP (work in progress) shot as a teaser:

Day 13, “Ash” - For this one, I didn't want to bother with a pencil sketch, just worked alla prima (that's art lingo for just throwing down, no sketch, underpainting, or other preparation). As you can see, I worked quick and loose to keep that fresh, sketchy feel.

We are now go for Inktober 2020. Maybe I'll even get to it before Inktober 2021 starts!  

Previous posts about Inktober:

https://allsortsartbyali.blogspot.com/2019/12/a-little-backstory-on-inktober.html

https://allsortsartbyali.blogspot.com/2020/10/inktober-2020-is-under-way.html

https://allsortsartbyali.blogspot.com/2020/11/more-fun-with-inktober.html

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More Fun with Inktober

Inktober 2020 has officially ended, but I still have so much to say and to show you! In the last post, I started sharing the drawings I had done for Inktober 2019. I started them when it was still October, but the month ran out on me. Nevertheless, there is no reason not to continue with the artwork, so I kept doing a little here and there all throughout the following months. Why not? It kept me making artwork, and I had complained in this post about how hard it is to be motivated to create when I don't have the pressure of a portrait commission and its attendant deadline. I enjoyed continuing "Yeartober" (maybe I should trademark that), and I will probably keep going. 

Now, on to the artwork: 

Day 6 - Husky (above)

I frequently do realistic animal illustrations, but I wanted to make a comical illustration of a husky dog. He's not extremely cartoony because I did use photo reference to ensure accuracy in coloration and general features. He's friendly-looking, though, isn't he? I wanted to make it all about those pointy ears and that giant schnozz! 

Day 7 - Enchanted

I enjoyed the addition of limited color in my day three picture, "Bait" (it's in the previous post), so I used the same transparent green color to add a little glow of magic. 

Day 8 - Frail

Okay, this one is a bit heavy and conceptual. The person pictured appears to be old and frail and clearly has wasted away in some dark dungeon for a long, long time. But we can observe that the frail hand could easily slip out of the large, loose shackle--and if that weren't enough, the shackle itself is connected only by a little paper chain. My attempted commentary here is that some people are imprisoned of their own volition or may feel trapped within a prison of their own mind. Maybe they have grown so accustomed to their situation that they don't take a chance to escape when one is presented. There are many factors that could come into play: fear, stubbornness, denial, delusion, depression, sense of duty.  

Day 9 - Swing

Another political cartoon, after years of NOT doing any! Well, it's been a pretty crazy year. The prompt "swing" made me think of "swing states", and so I drew North Carolina with a scale to depict how the state swings as voters decide to switch support from one candidate to the other. But North Carolina is often "Too Close to Call" right up until the very last vote is counted -- as can be seen this very day. 

I hope you have enjoyed the latest Inktober installment. I did a few more for 2019, which I will cover next time, before starting in on the 2020 work. Have you decided to illustrate any of the prompts yourself? 

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Inktober 2020 is Under Way!

Well under way. As a matter of fact, seeing as how it's October 28th, the dang thing is almost over! However, since technically it's still October, I'm doing a bit better than my last post about it, which was in December. Read it. It's fun! https://allsortsartbyali.blogspot.com/2019/12/a-little-backstory-on-inktober.html

Actually, that was my last ACTUAL post on this entire blog. In DECEMBER. Oof. 

All I can say is - I did tell you I was lazy. Also pandemic, yadda yadda. The pandemic has kept me from meeting in person with the art group; however, since we also belong to a Facebook group, everyone is sharing their Inktober work, and that spurs me on. I have been participating this year, and will probably continue after the month is over, because you know I won't finish on time. I am already hilariously behind, but that's cool - it's a good excuse for me to not participate in NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month, for the uninitiated) for the "however long it's been in existence"th year. 

But wait - in my last post, I shared some of my work from Inktobers past, and I shared the prompts for Inktober 2019, should you be interested. But I hadn't yet shared the drawings I did for Inktober 2019. So, um, time to do that now, clearly. I'll get to 2020 when I get to it, okay? Who knows, that might even be before Inktober 2021. One can hope, anyway. 

Day 1 - Ring

One of the reasons I like the Inktober prompts is that they are often open-ended, which leads to a lot of creative possibilities. Think of all the different kinds of rings - the kind you wear on your finger, the kind you leave in the tub, a "faerie ring" in the forest, that creepy movie where the little girl crawled out of the TV. There's also the verb form of ring, which reminds me of telephones, church bells, school bells, alarms. You can make conceptual associations, such as "let freedom ring" or "for whom does the bell toll", or even draw the ill-fated Challenger shuttle, downed by a failure of one of the o-rings. I went the predictable route with this one: an engagement ring. But perhaps not the predictable response...

Day 2 - Mindless

It's creepy-looking, I guess. Just a commentary on how everyone is so into what's on their phones that they are often unaware what's happening around them in the real world. Also a bit of social commentary that has been especially on my mind the last few years, about how people are so easily swayed by what they see presented as "facts" online that critical thinking seems to be going very much by the wayside, leaving us without a mind of our own, or so set in our own beliefs that we tune out opposing (or even different) points of view and join those who only want to hear those same views in a "hive mind".

Day 3 - Bait

I follow politics, but it's rare for me to make what might be considered a "political cartoon". I have pretty strong feelings about how funding from NRA lobbyists have allowed our gun culture to run rampant and cause so much heartache. The vast majority of Americans, including gun owners, want reasonable regulation on guns, such as comprehensive background checks. But money talks, right? As our nefarious lobbyist says, "best bait ever."

Day 4 - Freeze

Continuing my streak of bad actors, here's Mr. Freeze from DC's Batman comic book and movie franchise. Chillin' like a villain! 

Day 5 - Build (pictured above)

Okay, here's a funny one, because I can't draw incisive and depressing political cartoons every day (or really, draw anything every day). I think we've all seen those houses whose owners obviously had more time and money than sense, or places with a rather odd mix of architectural styles. I figure, why not ALL of them? How many different kinds do you see? 

One more thing I will add about this year's Inktober is the ist of prompts, in case you would like to get started while it's still actually going. And if you start late, hey - you're in good company! 

Inktober 2020 Prompts:

1. fish

2. wisp

3. bulky

4. radio 

5. blade

6. rodent

7. fancy

8. teeth

9. throw

10. hope

11. disgusting

12. slippery

13. dune

14. armor

15. outpost

16. rocket

17. storm

18. trap

19 dizzy

20. coral

21. sleep

22. chef

23. rip

24. dig

25. buddy
26. hide

27. music
28. float

29. shoes

30. ominous

31.  crawl

Thanks for reading! I will share more, hopefully soon! 

Yay, here is the next installment: https://allsortsartbyali.blogspot.com/2020/11/more-fun-with-inktober.html

All images original art by the author. Use of "Mr. Freeze" character trademarked by DC Comics is not intended to infringe. The NRA can kiss my wazoo. 

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A Little Backstory on Inktober

Okay, yes, it's December, and Inktober is in October, but I'll be honest: I'm still working on it. And there's never not a good time to create or talk about art, so let's do that.

By the way, in case you don't know what Inktober is, it is a month-long challenge to create a different piece of art with ink every single day (I'm not going to say a drawing, although most of them are, because you could also do a painting in ink wash). It was invented in 2009 by Jake Parker, who runs the Inktober website at www.inktober.com. Every year when Inktober rolls around, Jake publishes prompts for each day, in case you have a little difficulty coming up with ideas, or if you like the challenge of how to conceptualize the prompts. You don't have to follow the prompts, though; the point is just to make yourself create on a regular basis. Keep those art muscles limber!

Now, as you may know, I am terribly lazy, and "challenges" are even more challenge-y because of that. My first year participating in Inktober was in 2017, and I didn't know about the prompts, so I just drew whatever. Ink is actually one of my go-to media, as anyone who has been hanging out on my Facebook page or on this blog probably knows (the title pic is from a calendar I did back in college that had all ink drawings), so this should be a breeze, right?

Well, the laziness, remember.

Anyway, that first year saw me produce about four drawings, all in ballpoint pen, most on Post-It notes, because I did all of them at work. Here's one:

I hadn't started on October 1st, and I probably didn't even do those four drawings on consecutive days. But, I did do them, and without Inktober, I probably wouldn't have done them, so there.

Last year, I actually did start on October 1st. I think I did know that there were prompts, but I said pffft and still drew what I felt like drawing. Again, I did all of my drawings at work, but at least I did them on actual paper and not colored Post-It notes:

And yes, again, I only produced a few drawings. I was going to do a stylized alphabet, because what could be easier? And it would get me through 26 days without having to even come up with any original ideas. Well, I got allllll the way to...B. Yes, I managed to do even less last year than the first year. A, B, and one other drawing - some floral doodle thingy. But hey, again, I drew something. I had tangible results of my minimal efforts.

This year, I started Inktober late, and I had a very good excuse: I had a portrait commission to fill. Once that was done, though, it was still October, so I though, "what the heck"? and visited the Inktober site for the prompts. The prompts for Inktober 2019, just in case you want to toy with it, are:
1. ring                 
2. mindless         
3. bait                 
4. freeze             
5. build
6. husky
7. enchanted
8. frail
9. swing
10. pattern
11. snow
12. dragon
13. ash
14. overgrown
15. legend
16. wild
17. ornament
18. misfit
19. sling
20. tread
21. treasure
22. ghost
23. ancient
24. dizzy
25. tasty
26. dark
27. coat
28. ride
29. injured
30. catch
31. ripe

I'm sure you are wondering how things went this year, aren't you? Actually, not too badly. As I said, I started extremely late, but this past year, I became active in two local art groups, and having companions who were hitting Inktober pretty hard, as well as chances to join them for drawing sessions, was very helpful. Eschewing the scrap paper I'd been festooning with my scrawls, I bought a small sketchbook that was actually dedicated for the purpose. This made a difference in the quality of my drawings, as well. I did pencil sketches first, instead of working alla prima (this is not against the rules--you get to do ink your way, and that means any way).

In the interest of not making this post overly long, though, I will do a follow-up concerning this year's effort, since it can be another whole post unto itself, maybe even two or three. Stay tuned!

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Film-making 101:How Sergei Eisenstein Employs D. W. Griffith's Editing Techniques in the Film Battleship Potemkin

D.W. Griffith's 1916 film Intolerance was a major influence on the Russian development of montage. Russian filmmakers closely studied how Griffith used his cuts to drive the narrative, to integrate diverse material, to intensify emotions with its rhythms, and to mirror internal thoughts and sensations. The following essay will show how Sergei Eisenstein used Griffith's techniques to achieve those four results in his 1925 film Battleship Potemkin.

One of the best examples of Eisenstein's use of cutting to drive the narrative is the mutiny sequence, where we are first shown, one by one, the various affronts and abuses that are the reasons for the men's anger, then given the final straw that starts the mutiny: the attempted execution. In the uproar that follows, cutting is rapid, showing the men running about, grabbing weapons, and the fate of each officer after the chase. Eisenstein intersperses takes of the men chasing and dispatching the officers with dramatic shots of the Potemkin's flag flying high, as if urging them on.

Directly before the mutiny sequence, Eisenstein used his editing in a slightly different way. To build up the tension before the mutiny and to amass evidence for the benefit of the audience, Eisenstein enumerates the cruelties wreaked upon the harried crew, the foremost among these being the rotten food. The unsympathetic doctor, the vicious First Mate, the crazed priest, and the difficult working conditions are also highlighted. Eisenstein juxtaposes the men going about their daily routine with shots of the stew containing the rotted meat; shots of their exhausted sleep with the belligerent night-snooping of the boatswain, and takes of the men buying food with those of the uneaten stew to show that they've refused it. Later in the film, Eisenstein again links up diverse material through the narrative by playing shots of the freedom-loving Odessans against the oppressive, freedom-shattering Imperial Guard.

Eisenstein's rhythmic cutting plays on the emotions, building suspense, terror, or anger almost to a fever pitch. His quick switches from the terrified Odessans fleeing down the steps in screaming disorder and the calm, unfeeling onward march of the soldiers creates an irregular rhythm that is quite disquieting. His cuts from the sailors of the Potemkin waking and preparing to face the oncoming fleet to those of the ships as they approach builds suspense—this sequence seems to go on forever, until the tension is released by the information that the fleet has joined the revolutionary cause.

Although this film depicts large numbers of people as its “main character”, Eisenstein still manages to show individual emotion: the anger on the face of the dishwasher as he breaks the plate; the clenching of the fists of the funeral observers; the expression on the face of the mother who sees her boy prone and trampled on the steps; the tearful embrace of the sailors who believe they are going to their deaths. All these and many others give the audience a sense of pathos, stirring emotions enough to generate genuine interest in the story and heartfelt sympathy for its characters and their cause.

Potemkin is one of the greatest examples of Soviet montage because of the way Eisenstein's editing has shown all of these things, creating drama and intensity in an artistic way while still maintaining a clear narrative.

To read more, including a plot summary, visit https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battleship_Potemkin

The film can be seen here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_4Qfuzn25sI

Image of Battleship Potemkin from Wikimedia Commons. Public domain.

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