The Inktober prompt today was “sword” and I thought of my scottish Hannah family motto Per ardua ad alta which means Through straits to heights. I tweaked our family motto to fit the “sword” prompt, adding a sword on the left-hand side. It’s always nice to dabble with your surname.
Ink: Dr. Ph. Martin’s Black Star & Pen-White Pen: Pilot Falcon Soft EF Japan Brushes: 3 Kuratake water brushes & 2 Princeton “cheap” watercolour brushes Sketchbook: Moleskine Art Collection, japanese album Location: my imagination -)
There are worse crimes than burning books. One of them is not reading them. — Ray Bradbury
One of my best books that I read at about 14 years old was Dandelion Wine by Ray Bradbury. Read this at any age, it is so good.
Just wanted to mention something about the Pilot Falcon Soft Pen EF. It took me months and months to start enjoying this pen, which I paid a hefty sum in my view, for a pen that I didn’t really appreciate. But oh boy! Has it turned around? At the beginning it felt scratchy and didn’t fit my hand that well. But I have adapted and now it has become smooth and fits perfectly. Weird huh? Maybe that the scratchiness has disappeared because I have used it a lot? Also, I used to swear by other pens because of their fine line, but this one surpasses all of them. So you never know, until you use a tool enough and that you adapt to it.
Ink: Dr. Ph. Martin’s Black Star & Pen-White Pen: Pilot Falcon Soft EF Japan Brushes: 3 Kuratake water brushes & 2 Princeton “cheap” watercolour brushes Sketchbook: Moleskine Art Collection, japanese album Location: my imagination -)
To learn is to broaden, to experience more, to snatch new aspects of life for yourself. To refuse to learn or to be relieved at not having to learn is to commit a form of suicide; in the long run, a more meaningful type of suicide than the mere ending of physical life… Knowledge is not only power; it is happiness, and being taught is the intellectual analog of being loved. — Isaac Asimov
I must still be in Halloween mode as it is a bit scary. I’m scared of snakes but I love mushrooms and trees. So two to one. Snakes are so beautiful though, aren’t they? Mushrooms and snakes are so bloody nice to draw… and trees of course! So if you don’t know what to draw, just draw trees and the flow in their bark will inspire your hand to draw more.
Ink: Dr. Ph. Martin’s Black Star Pen: Pilot Falcon Soft EF Japan Brushes: 3 Kuratake water brushes Sketchbook: Moleskine Art Collection, japanese album Location: my brain -)
Time is not a thing that passes… it’s a sea on which you float. — Margaret Atwood
My idea was good!…. at first. Then trying to make it happen, well.. not quite so good. My first thought for spicey was a dragon with fire coming out of his mouth. Not bad, huh? Then I told myself: “What if he was gripping a hot pepper?” Well, now the difficulties arose, as I muffed up the dragon’s face so he is barely recognizable and then the hot pepper is just too “soft”? Anyway, you get the gist of it all -))) Some days you have it, others less so…
Ink: Dr. Ph. Martin’s Black Star Pens: Pilot Falcon Soft EF Japan Brushes: 3 Kuratake water brushes & 2 Princeton “cheap” watercolour brushes Sketchbook: Moleskine Art Collection, japanese album Location: my brain -)
There’s nothing like drawing a thing to make you really see it. — Margaret Atwood
Never thought that drawing sand dunes would be so difficult.
Ink: Dr. Ph. Martin’s Black Star Pens: Pilot Falcon Soft EF Japan Brushes: 3 Kuratake water brushes & 2 Princeton “cheap” watercolour brushes Sketchbook: Moleskine Art Collection, japanese album Location: my brain -)
The flower’s pollen is the bee’s fortune, but for humankind, the bee is our fortune. — Jane Hannah
A busy bee this one… even though it looks like something that could be in Starwars –))) Had way too much fun drawing this “fortune” prompt and I think that I slightly overdid it.
Ink: Dr. Ph. Martin’s Black Star & Pen-White Pens: Pilot Falcon Soft EF Japan Brushes: Princeton “cheap” watercolour brushes Sketchbook: Moleskine Art Collection, japanese album (last page). Location: my mind -)
I love fiction’s ability to allow me to inhabit a wholly different life. — Rumaan Alam.
I am presently reading with my Book Nuts Club “The Librarian of Burned Books” by Brianna Labuskes and am enjoying it so much. It is a captivating WWII-era novel about the intertwined fates of three women who believe in the power of books to triumph over the very darkest moments of war. I actually dreamt about it last night and I woke up sweating. Hah-hah!
One of my two favourite wild animals in the world are whales and elephants. These giants are so intelligent and they amaze me with their curiosity. Still can’t believe that we are killing these gentle giants in 2023. However my favourite domesticated animal is surely the dog, especially Golden Retrievers, as I consider them to be gentle giants too. Do some of you remember The Gentle Giant TV show in the 60s? I am discovering the world of parrots at the moment and boy are they mischievous, intelligent and fun! If I had known I would have adopted one in my 20s and still have it. Aaahhh, things that we ignore when we are young even though we tend to think that we know everything.
Coming back to painting and drawing, I was reading Roslyn Stendahl’s “Patience in Watercolour” yesterday and she is so right. I become a very impatient painter with watercolours as when I am in the flow, I tend to think that if I stop painting to let it dry, that the flow will disappear… I won’t be able to get back into that state. But she talks about the type of watercolour paints that we should buy, which colours to pick and so on. She has years of experience in teaching also and is very generous with her knowledge.
Ink: Dr. Ph. Martin’s Black Star & Pen-White Pens: Pilot Falcon Soft EF Japan Brushes: Princeton “cheap” watercolour brushes Sketchbook: Moleskine Art Collection, japanese album Location: a photo from Unsplash -)
I would have artists be convinced that the supreme skill and art in painting consists in knowing how to use black and white… because it is light and shade that make objects appear in relief. — Leon Battista Alberti
Well I had a heck of a fun time drawing this. Don’t ask me what I tried drawing though, what kind of a world, but it fits just fine with my love of sci-fi books. I just went with the creative flow. Funny, I used to teach a Creative Workflow course at John Abbott… seems years ago to me even though it has only been two years since retirement. I do hope though that you can see the two toads here? At the rhythm that I am drawing with Inktober this year, I’ll probably have done my 30 drawings by the end of the year? Doesn’t matter, this is fun -)))
Ink: Dr. Ph. Martin’s Black Star & Pen-White Pens: Tachikawa Nikko G Pointed Nib & Pilot Falcon Soft EF Japan Brushes: 3 Kuratake water brushes & 2 Princeton “cheap” watercolour brushes Sketchbook: Moleskine Art Collection, japanese album Location: my imagination -)
It is no longer sufficient to describe the world of nature. The point is to defend it. — Edward Abbey
Love this conversation between Ricky Gervais & Stephen Colbert. Here is the link if you want to listen to it on YouTube. I was thinking of nature and science at the same time… and war. And sometimes, our brains are wired in a funny way and it led me to this memory of a conversation that was quite interesting, to say the least. I had to start all over again for this drawing as the first one that I did, I really really muffed it up! LOL -))) This is is simple… and safe.
RG: I’m an agnostic-atheist technically. Agnosticism means that no one knows if there is a God so everyone is Agnostic. An atheist is someone who doesn’t know if there is a God or not, as no one does.
SC: So you’re not convinced of your atheism?
RG: Yes I am! Atheism is just rejecting the claim that there is a God. Atheism isn’t a belief system. This is Atheism in a nutshell. You say: “There is a God. I say: “Can you prove that?” You say: “No”. Then I say: “I don’t believe you then.” So you believe in one God I assume? There are about 3000 Gods to choose from. So basically you deny one less God than I do. You don’t believe in 2999 Gods and I don’t believe in just one more.
RG: We want to make sense of nature and science and it is unfathomable that everything in the Universe was once crushed into something smaller than an Atom.
SC: But you don’t know that! You just believe Stephen Hawkins and this is a matter of having faith in his abilities. You don’t know it yourself, you’re accepting it because someone told you.
RG: But science is constantly proved all the time. You see, if we take something like any fiction book, or holy book and we destroyed it, in a 1000 years time, these books would never come back. However, if we took every science book, and every fact, and destroyed them, in a 1000 years they would all be back, because all of the same tests would give the same results.
Pen: Pilot Falcon Soft EF Japan Sketchbook: Moleskine Art Collection, japanese album Location: my brain in Rigaud -)
A box without hinges, key or lid Yet golden treasure inside is hid. — Bilbo The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien
Getting a tad late with my Inktober prompts, but oh boy! Am I still enjoying using my imagination? Love it! I should have put the egg much bigger and downsized the cockatiel, but still. Playing with proportions is part of the imaginative process… and you ask yourself: “What if…?”
Ink: Dr. Ph. Martin’s Black Star & Pen-White Pens: Tachikawa Nikko G Pointed Nib & Pilot Falcon Soft EF Japan Brushes: 3 Kuratake water brushes & 2 Princeton “cheap” watercolour brushes Sketchbook: Moleskine Art Collection, japanese album Location: my brain -)
Painting to see : Peindre pour voir 