Thursday Art Walk

In Which Spoopy Season Has Officially Begun!

Every October, I try to do one of those 31-Artworks-in-31-Days Prompt Lists. I started with Inktober, but then I learned about the controversy with that, and I don't need drama, so I have started experimenting with other Prompt Lists. Last year I attempted Witchtober. This year I went with Kick In The Creatives' "Creeptober".

Know how I just said I don't need drama?

Yeah, this prompt list has caused drama.

Not in the ways you may think, though...

See, I'm pretty sure - about 99% certain - that this prompt list is either Cursed or Haunted.

Why?

Well, the first prompt, Dracula? When I sketched it, I created an abomination so terrible, so upsetting, that I couldn't even look at it. I had to give it hair and play around in both Paint.net and Krita to get it to stop scaring me.

It also broke my scanner.

Kind of.

See, my scanner sometimes forgets how to scan, somewhere in between my computer and the machine itself, and when that happens, usually restarting my computer works for resetting it.

Guys, nothing on earth will induce my scanner to put that Dracula drawing on the internet.

My camera phone, meanwhile, is not superstitious, so I snapped a pic of the sketch and sent it to myself.

AND NOW BLOGGER IS REFUSING TO UPLOAD THE PICS TO THE BLOG! What on earth?!?!?!

"Dracula Lineart"; pencil & digital sketch; 2022

What I'm having to do to get this freaky, upsetting image online is switch back & forth between HTML and Compose mode in Blogger, so I'm now 100% convinced this Dracula is haunted.

Here it is in color:

"Dracula"; digital painting; 2022

See? Much less creepy in color.

And yes, I still have no idea how to use Krita effectively, though I'm experimenting, so we'll see how that goes.

The second through 6th prompts are far less problematic, but oh my god this one picture has been running my life. Not ruining, necessarily, but running it. I have been practically glued to my keyboard trying to draw and paint it.

"Ghost" digital Painting; 2022

I'm so proud of this ghost, even if it took me about a dozen tries to get it looking alright. Blending tools are so cool, and I really do like all the brushes available in Krita.

"Hidden"; Digital Painting; 2022

I'm... not impressed with this one, to be honest. Just getting the colors to work together was a bear, and honestly, the tree kinda looks poopy. But I dig the eyes, and... hold on... did I leave the color swatch at the top? Oh no I did! Oh well. I'm leaving it, because that's actually pretty funny. Always check your layers, kids. Always.

After Hidden, I was tired of wrestling with art programs that refused to cooperate and didn't want to tempt fate playing around in my creepy basement scanning, so these are photos of paintings/sketches I did for the rest of this week's prompts (4-6)!

"Pumpkin"; Watercolor on cotton paper; 2022

"Candle"; Watercolor on Cotton Paper; 2022

"Candy Apple" pencil sketch on dot matrix paper; 2022

You read that right, I drew the Candy Apple sketch on dot matrix paper.

It's 2022, and I have a ream of dot matrix paper.

My joints creak.

Honestly, though, this prompt list is a lot of fun, though I'm not sure how I'm going to tackle #31 "Something You're Afraid Of". You're all gonna laugh at me.

And rightfully so. I'm scared of some really silly stuff.

Like a sketch.

It's face down across the room and I'm still creeped out lol!

Anywho, here's the prompt list written out in case you don't want to follow any links:

1. Dracula (👍)
2. Ghostly (👍)
3. Hiding (👍)
4. Pumpkin (👍)
5. Candle (👍)
6. Toffee Apple (👍)
7. Facepaint
8. Candy
9. Cauldron
10. Witch
11. Mummy
12. Under The Bed
13. In The Dark
14. Spell
15. Monster
16. Horror Film
17. Festival
18. Scary Face
19. Graveyard/Cemetery
20. Goblin
21. Punch
22. Clown
23. Silhouette
24. Twilight
25. Full Moon
26. Through The Window
27. Goth
28. Costume
29. Party
30. Trick-or-Treat
31. Something You're Afraid of

How about you all? Are you doing a prompt list this October? And do you want to influence some of the content of my pictures? If you'd like a say in what I draw/paint/bang my head against in Paint.net or Krita, go ahead and send me a coffee on Ko-Fi with a message telling me what category you'd like me to tackle - Animal, Vegetable, Mineral, Geometric, Location, Word, Dedbert. I can incorporate any of those categories into these prompt challenges!

For the record, the paintings today correspond like this: "Dracula" = Animal (people are animals!), "Ghost" = Animal (dead people were animals?), "Hidden" = Location (it's technically a landscape), "Pumpkin" = Vegetable, "Candle" = Location (It's inside?), and "Candy Apple" = Vegetable. As you can see, I'm... loose with meanings when I'm on my own, but if you want to see what I do with a combination of your tip and the prompt from Creeptober, give it a go!

I hope you're all having a good time out there. Try not to create any Actually Cursed Images, and...

Go Enjoy Something!

FC