Tour of Sketchbook no. 35

This is my first Stillman & Birn sketchbook with their Beta series paper. I liked it very much - but I think I prefer using my favorite Fabriano Artistico watercolor papers in the size and format of my choosing when I bind my own sketchbooks. But, it was fun trying a new sketchbook.

Here is the slow tour of the sketchbook followed by a quick tour.

Thanks for watching! I'd love to hear your comments.

Inktober

October is Inktober month! What is Inktober?

Every October, artists all over the world take on the InkTober drawing challenge by doing one ink drawing a day the entire month.

Jared Parker created Inktober in 2009 as a challenge to improve his inking skills and develop positive drawing habits.

I normally draw in ink without using pencil first, but I decided to participate in Inktober this year to work on my hatching skills and drawing without always adding watercolor.

There are prompts for each Inktober day, but I don't always use them.

Here are my first few Inktober attempts.

A Sktchy portrait of one of my greatest supporters, Carl Forrest! I used an ink wash here.

Practicing my hatching skills with a drawing of my dog, Coco

A Sktchy portrait and more practice with hatching

Are you participating in Inktober? The "rules" are simple:

1) Make a drawing in ink (you can do a pencil under-drawing if you want).

2) Post it online

3) Hashtag it with #inktober and #inktober2016

4) Repeat

Portraits 80-83

Here are my latest portraits for the 100 Day Project. I've been trying to loosen my style and improve my watercolor skills.

This is a piece done of a friend's niece. Such a cute inspiration photo!

This is a Sktchy portrait that I attempted in an effort to also work on skies as I've been doing in Shari Blaukopf's Sketching Landscapes Craftsy class.

This is a portrait of Megan, my dear friend's niece who recently tragically died in a car accident. I plan to redo this in an 8 x 10" format that she can frame. I tried to emulate the loose, sketchy style of many artists I admire, especially Sktchy artist Dominic Beyeler.

Finally, this is another Sktchy portrait in which I tried to loose my style like I did with Megan's portrait above. More practice is needed!

Which do you like best? Do you prefer a looser style of sketching?