My first InkTober

This is my first time participating in the InkTober challenge. Last year I shied away from it because I am not good at inking, or ink work. This year I decided to embrace the challenge for what it is, an opportunity to practice, create healthy drawing habits and improve my skills.

If you don't know what it is, InkTober is a challenge created by artist Jake Parker, where artists from all around the world create a daily ink drawing during the month of October. The drawings have to be done in ink; pencil is allow for the under drawing. Post it online and hashtag it #inktober or #inktober2016.  If you need prompts, there is a prompt list for each day. I am not using it yet, but I might.

So in the month of October you might see some of my messy drawings, but hopefully at the end there will be some good pieces that will show improvement. I am not planning of do this challenge completely blind, without researching and study a bit. That is why I will be using some books to get some advice and techniques about drawing with ink.

Join me and other artist this month to create and to grow as artist and creative people.

What other challenges do you know of? Which ones have you been part of?

So far I know of 29faces challenge by Ayala Art and Inktober.

Daily sketching challenge

I have decided to work harder to improve my drawing and sketching skills, so I decided to challenge myself and try to sketch daily. The objective is to sketch random stuff that is around me and fill up a whole sketchbook in a month. For me the biggest challenge is to sketch out in public, so I am pushing myself to do it. So far I have only sketched at a dinner once and so fast that you can tell; but it is a learning process and I am sure that I will get use to it.

Although I haven't sketch daily, I am trying to narrow the gap between days and sketch at home.

I like to start my drawing/art sessions with warm-ups. This is an example of a warm-up in newsprint paper.

These are my daily sketches so far.

For the eye I used Caran D'Ache Neocolor®I.

Finding inspiration and motivation to be creative

Hello everyone. Have it has happen to you that you have no motivation or inspiration to craft and do art? I has had happen to me, and lots of times. So I have look for different ways to keep myself motivated; for example taking classes of my interest over the web, search YouTube for inspirational videos, re-visit my previous creations and looking for challenges where I can find motivation and inspiration.

Now, I now that taking classes require some investment (time and money wise) that cannot be afford all the time, at least I can't. That leaves me with the other options, which are free! This past few weeks have been weird for me; I kind of want to do something crafty and artistic but had no motivation or inspiration at all. Then I saw the 29 facces on September challenge on Ayala Art, Mixed Media Paintings, ACEOS  blog and saw the light at the end of the tunnel ;).

The great thing about this kind of challenge is that other people are with you on it, it cost you no money and you can invest the time you want/can to. Also, they are great sources of inspiration and motivation, as well as, a great way to keep you practicing and improving your skills.

So here I am, with my first face for the 29 faces challenge; I know I'm 4 days "behind" schedule but it doesn't worries me. Why? Because I can create more than one face a day, they don't have to be a master piece or even a completed project. For me any face doodling counts as I am practicing techniques and improving my skills.

Here is a sketch I made in my handmade pocket sketch book, just for the fun of it and to practice some pencil blending using Gamsol (I'm new at it ;)).

So go ahead and find your source of inspiration and motivation, whether it is a class, challenge or video; don't stop yourself, hop on the adventure and  have fun.