Catching up after not posting for a few days!
Inktober Day 23: "Firefly"
This one is brown ink in the Little Fat Man pen, followed by watered-down yellow gouache and whatever was on my palette plus a little Boku-Undo Shadow Black e-sumi watercolor to make the brownish greys and greenish yellow eyes.
It’s far from perfect, but all the same, I like some elements of this. The idea could be fun, if given more time and care.
Inktober Day 24: "Rowdy"
More of the brown ink, followed by watered down red gouache (and maybe some of the red from the Boku-Undo set mentioned above).
I guess this fits the topic well enough… I had planned to have one dog biting (or about to bite) the tail of one of the standing dogs, but it just didn’t work out.
Inktober Day 25: "Inferno"
I didn’t want to draw an actual inferno. (I’m trying to keep these a little more upbeat than that…) The obvious choice when combining dogs and fire is the Dalmatian, so I tried to do that, and I incorporated a little fire to fit the topic.
The painted background makes it look a bit better than it would otherwise, I think, and fiery red is another nod to the prompt.
Not So Itsy-Bitsy Spiders
The other day, I happened to catch a “banana spider” (golden silk orb-weaver, I think?) adding the zig-zag to her web, right outside a window, so I could see it up close. It was interesting to watch. After she worked her way up to the middle of the web, she turned around and started the other half of the zig-zag pattern from the top down, finishing right in the middle, where they like to sit upside-down and wait.
Watching the zig-zag take form was like seeing a sewing machine make the zig-zag stitch—back and forth, advancing a little with each step.
Anyway, watching that reminded me what I’d been meaning to doodle spiders, one day, and so that evening I did just that, even though I wasn’t feeling very inspired. Usually, if I just start, I find that I enjoy the process. Getting started is the hard part.
They aren’t perfect, but so what? They’re fine! After doodling them, it was fun to color them in with watercolor.
I doubt spiders will ever be a favorite doodle subject for me, but they were better than expected—especially the painting part.
Halloween Charm-Pack Table Runner
I think it was last October or maybe even November that I was trying to decide what to do with a single Halloween-themed charm pack I had. Rather than trying anything too fancy, I decided to just join them up into a simple skinny table runner.
I guess I didn’t finish it until after October ended, because I never used it. It’s just been sitting folded in my craft room. Now that October has rolled around again, it’s getting some use.
There’s not much to say about it… I think the fabric line is called “Kitty Corn”. I just arranged the charms how I liked them and joined them up. The backing is just a remnant of a plain white/cream sheet, leftover from another project, and the binding is also from a sheet, I believe…
I don’t remember what the batting is… Either polyester or cotton. (Scraps from something bigger.) And the quilting is very simple—just roughly equidistant on either side of each seams.
It hasn’t even been washed, yet, but if I think about it, I’ll do that before putting it away at the end of the month (or whenever I get around to it).
Here it is in a more natural setting, with stuff on top (and a Frodo dog nearby):
