Thursday Art Walk

 

In Which These Are Mostly Doodles/Concepts...

I have, as you may be aware, been plugging away at the art prompts from Kick In The Creatives' Creeptober list...

But the last couple weeks have been weird.

Last week, everything was all about my youngest sister's wedding, which, as I said on Tuesday, was PERFECT. It was marvelous and I hope the two of them have a wonderful marriage. It did mean that I was a bit wrapped up in the stresses of prep and then the tiredness of the following days (not that I cut a rug or anything, I'm just low-social, and having that many people around me was tiring in a very good way).

This week, you'd think I'd have less excuses to fall behind on art, but... somehow despite there not being anything going on, I still feel very tired and none of that is helped by me not being able to sleep. Yay.

Last night's lack of sleep had a reason, at least.

One of the massive horde of ladybugs that seem to be creeping into everyone's homes found its way into my bedroom, and instead of chilling on the ceiling or on a far wall like one of my spiders...

The big doofus was flying around like an idiot, smacking into walls, pinging off the metal shade to my bedside lamp, and most egregiously of all...

Landing. on. my face.

Ugh.

Nothing like waking up at 3am with little feet tapdancing on your nostril.

Creepy lil butthead.

Anyway, it's missing in action now, so there's every possibility that this headache I can't shake is from ingesting a toxic insect.

I'm mostly joking about eating the ladybug.

Because it really is nowhere to be found...

Anyway, after yesterday's rainstorms, today's gorgeous 65℉/18,3℃ weather with its broad blue sky and wondrously golden light and balmy winds is a treat. A treat that I enjoyed in owl pants and a tee with Putties from Power Rangers on it under the label "Jobbers". Also a yellow flannel shirt. While wielding sandpaper and scrubbing furiously at rocks.

Anywho, I did end up doing the art from the 14th to today, it's just.... kind of more conceptual than finished. And there are some pieces that I'd love to finish some day!

"SPELL"; pencil sketch; 2022

"MONSTER" pen sketch; 2022

"HORROR FILM"; marker sketch; 2022

Yes, Horror Film is flipped on its side. My camera was being very, very combative that day. And yes, it's based on "Halloween". I'd actually like to try this one again, because the idea of taking something that should be Orange and Red and Silver and making it in entirely pink/magenta tones is kinda calling to me. I'd try it in Krita, I think.

As for Monster, that thing is adorable, but I wouldn't want to meet it on a moonless night. And Spell has a lot of potential in a more graphic style - it might make a fun piece of flash some day.

"FESTIVAL"; marker sketch; 2022

Oh Festival... I want to redraw this some day as a proper engraving-style piece. It's supposed to look like a Halloween-themed Maypole being danced around by various monsters - a bat, a skeleton, a headless ghost, a minotaur, and maybe a cat? I would love to play with this concept some more!

"SCARY FACE" marker sketch; 2022

"GRAVEYARD"; pencil sketch; 2022

"GOBLIN/I LIKE ROCKS"; marker and pencil sketch; 2022

"PUNCH" marker & pencil sketch; 2022

"CLOWN"; marker sketch; 2022

"SILHOUETTE"; pencil; 2022

"TWILIGHT"; marker sketch; 2022

"FULL MOON" marker sketch; 2022

"THROUGH THE WINDOW"; marker sketch; 2022

"GOTH" marker and pencil; 2022

I am extremely happy with how both Goblin and Goth turned out. They're both self portraits, after a fashion. I buzzed my hair yesterday and honestly, it's not bad! I can't do makeup to save my life, though, and I haven't owned a pair of purple pants in years.

I'm also thrilled with Silhouette, which is a silhouette of a human skull! Graveyard is based on a still from Plan 9 From Outer Space, and Scary Face is supposed to be a Gengar from Pokemon, but... yeah, he be wonky.

Those are the prompts for the last 14 days! I should post again on Halloween as a General Halloween Blog so check back then to see the last few prompts:

• Costume
• Party
• Trick or Treat
• Something You're Afraid Of

If you'd like to have a say as to what each of those contain, feel free to shoot me a coffee over on Ko-Fi with a message saying which category you'd like to add and for which prompt. The prompts are above, the categories are

• Animal
• Vegetable
• Mineral
• Dedbert
• Location
• Geometric
• Word

I'm really looking forward to closing out this month, and I'm gonna have a good time finishing up!

How about you guys, any plans for Halloween?

And I hope you go Enjoy Something!

FC

Thursday Art Walk

 

In Which Week 2 Was Much Harder

This week's prompts from Kick In The Creatives' Creeptober were way harder for me than last week's. Mostly because I was busy entertaining a cat and making mediocre nachos and noodles. I gave up on cooking after I overcooked corn chips. Let's be real, this was not my week. I spent most of it busy and tired, which is a killer combo for creativity.

Thankfully, though, between Krita and my dot matrix paper, I have several new pictures for you!

"Facepaint"; Digital Art; 2022

I started off with some digital art, but that skull actually took two days to paint because I suck at working from references, and also because I kept getting the layering wrong.

"Candy"; digital art; 2022

I am one of those weirdos who actually likes candy corn. I know, I know, they're not great, and also I'm pretty sure I keep getting the orange and yellow mixed up, but...I enjoy them. It's not like I'll eat a whole bag of candy corn, though, they're not M&Ms or Peach Rings. I just like to snag a handful when I can and nibble those corns over the course of an evening. Not sure why the background turned fully black, though. It was supposed to be like the skull, on a black blob against a white or clear background. Maybe I have to save as a png for that? I don't know.

Anyway, since those two pieces took forever, I used my dot matrix paper for the rest, which are as follows:

"Cauldron"; graphite & Pigma Micron PN; 2022

Since I've been pretty obsessed with rocks lately, I thought drawing a stone cauldron held up by rocks would be neat, and I was right... I just need to work on it some more. Maybe get some references to cauldrons being heated on tripods...

"Witch"; Pigma Micron PN; 2022

BUNNY! BUNNY BUNNY BUN BUN BUN! okay I'm good now. Whew. I love bunnies, and when this lil floppy loppy started taking shape in the sketch stage, I was smitten. Someday I shall do something with this idea. Also, I sketched the bunwitch out with pencils, but when I finished her, she looked incomplete, so I added the pumpkin after all the lineart was already down!

"Mummy"; pencil sketch under Pigma Micron PN; 2022

Listen, I was a 90s kid, which means I went through an Egypt phase. Between the Brenden Fraser Mummy movie and a glorious quarter during which my middle school class delved into that peculiar demi-whitewashed American view of Egyptian history we were all slurping up in the 1998-August 2001 times, I was smitten with all things Egyptological. Including cat mummies. So I drew one! Complete with jewelry and Death Mask! I would love to make a poseable version of this boyo some day, possibly out of polymer clay or something like that, then overlay it with gauze and such. It seems fun. Also I'm really proud of how the near foot and forepaw look.

"Under The Bed"; Pigma Micron PN; 2022

Not thrilled with how this came out, but I was very distracted by my cat sleeping in my lap and snoring like a freight train, so it's basically just eyes under a very bad footboard... If I were to expand on this, it'd be with paint and I'd make the eyes glowy and put an indistinct appendage reaching towards the viewer. Also I'd figure out how to actually draw the foot of a bed...

"In The Dark"; graphite and Pigma Micron PN; 2022

I'm actually quite pleased with how this one turned out, even if it didn't photograph particularly well.

I have a lot of fears. I'm a coward. But one of the dumbest things I hate doing is going into the bathroom in the dark. Seeing my shadowy form walk towards me in the mirror. I hate it. I don't like walking past reflective surfaces at night. Never have.

So this is something that legitimately creeps me out - my own silhouette.

Because I'm a wimp.

lol

Anyway, that'll do it from me this week. Next week's prompts are:

• Spell
• Monster
• Horror Film
• Festival
• Scary Face
• Graveyard/Cemetery
• Goblin

I'm gonna be real with you.

Goblin might be a self-portrait lol.

I hope you guys are having a good time getting your spooky on, checking out challenges, and being creative!

Go Enjoy Something!

FC

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