I decided to keep a running log here of all my Inktober sketches, for posterity’s sake and for those who aren’t following me on Twitter… yet. There is no set theme to follow for Inktober, as long as your drawings are all in ink. At first I wanted to stick to a Loteria/Mexican bingo theme, because I’m already developing a deck and I thought this would spur me to do it faster, but as you will see, I’ve already abandoned my theme by day three or four.
line art
Illustration Friday: “Imperfect”
Lost Bakery Sketch
A while ago, I designed a new website for a French bakery. They wanted about five different sketches for the home page. We went with one that depicted the bakery’s storefront, a sidewalk scene, with a limited pale yellow and golden brown color palette. I thought this rejected sketch of the counter would look nice with a full-color treatment. N.B.: The background is the same paper I used for my wedding invitations!
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Illustration Friday: “Obsession”
It wasn’t me or my undeveloped motor skills, Momma! Can’t you see I’ve got scribbleomania?!
Ahh yes, The Wordsworth Book of Intriguing Words, by Paul Hellweg, Wordsworth Editions Ltd., 1993. I don’t remember how this book came to live on my shelf, but it’s rescued me from many a case of artist’s and writer’s block. Its old title was The Insomniac’s Dictionary, which explains a lot.
It’s been some time, hasn’t it? I started out with an acute case of gamomania*, which ended abruptly in May, and the excitement of that day soon led to an extended period of clinomania**, kathisomania***, and hypnomania****. What a cluster of obsessions that was! The only cure for it was more clinomania, so you can see how time got away from me. I think I’m free of obsessions for now, except perhaps scribomania*****, which is not scribleomania at all!
* marriage, **bed rest, ***sitting, ****sleep, *****”writing a long succession of unconnected words.”
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Illustration Friday: “Bottled”
Reduce reuse recycle
Reduce reuse
Reduce
All I learned how to do in elementary school was recycle and drink from a faucet. True story!
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EEEE! Eliza’s Etsy Easter Exclusive!
I made some new greeting cards and they’re available on my Etsy site! Admit it, for Easter this year you’re tired of having hard-boiled eggs that you have to chop into salad for a week, and you want to avoid all that fattening delicious FATTENING candy. Enter the ecstatic Easter bunny! He’s got what you need to feed your head, along with some special hydroponically grown Easter grass to help you mellow out before and after church.
See it here!
Or if dealing with the Easter bunny and his issues is just too much of a hassle this year, you can have his basket all to yourself:
See it here!
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Illustration Friday: “Swarm”
Illustration Friday: “Layer”
I’m on a retro kick again. I used to collect recipe booklets and brochures from the 50’s and 60’s. A lot of them were illustrated with these simple, blocky collages and when I started on this one, I noticed it was in that style, so I kept going with it.
If I was a professor of design, advertising, and/or illustration, my first project would be to imagine the most useless, disgusting, or just plain ridiculous product, then present it in a way that makes it appealing. 50’s commercial art really does that for me. If ads were still in this style, I’d probably be smoking two packs a day, washed down with rum and Coca-Cola. And woven sisal fibers!
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Illustration Friday: “Sweater”
On my last few trips to the library, I’ve spotted about four novels by three different authors with knitting as the theme, more specifically a ladies’ knitting club. Two were romance novels, one was chick lit, and the other was a mystery. The mystery intrigued me at first, but after skimming the pages, I concluded that knitting was only there as a gimmick to appeal to… women who like to knit. You could have replaced the knitting club with flower arranging or drag racing and it would be the same book. Also, is knitting even interesting to read about? Maybe if it’s about a gang of Knittin’ Kninjas who cover their victims in full-body cable sweaters before they can blink or say, “Hey, I’m allergic to wool!” I might read that…
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