Ophelia, kittens and yet more ink

Hi hey hello there! Welcome back to another late blog post... heh. Sorry. Again. Same story as always, busy busy busy, but if I had known three late blog posts ago how much work I would have on now, I would laugh and pre-write all the posts that would later be late. That didn't make much sense, so very congratulations if you followed my time travelling excuse there. Anyway, another week, another 7 inktober images! (I think, along with the blog posts, the inktober pictures have unfortunately had to take a back seat on my list of priorities this week!) I'll get those out of the way and then I'll move on to explain why I have been so late with this post!

I am currently finding time to write this due to being sent home from work early thanks to Storm Ophelia, who is raging on outside and scaring the kitkats. OH! I didn't tell you about the cats! So very much going on at the moment, I feel like we haven't had a catch up in months, never mind just over a week! This weekend, Farren and I have been kitty-sitting for his Mum's gorgeous kitties. It's been so fun and we are extremely reluctant to give them back! It's also making us very much want a little feline friend of our own, so we'll see... Not just yet, but in the nearer future than we had planned...Maybe in a year or so. (That's me trying to be a responsible adult and realise the responsibilities of being a pet owner, but if the opportunity arose, I'd love to adopt a kitten tomorrow, who are we kidding here?)

So, where did we leave off last time... I think you saw up to day six, for which the prompt was 'sword.' So, from there, picking straight up to day seven, the prompt was 'shy.' Now, for this one, when I followed on to the next page of my sketchbook from the 'sword' image, there was a lot of bleed through of ink from the galaxy-esque background. I decided that instead of wasting a page in my sketchbook, that I would try to challenge myself to incorporate the bleed-through splotches into the piece, and so those are the splotches that make up the leaves in this image!

I actually really like this one, even though it isn't much like my usual style, it's a lot more cartoony! Following a cartoony theme, and skipping to day nine (I'll explain in a second), for 'screech' I took the prompt quite literally and again using the bleed through of ink still from the same day six piece (it bled through several pages!) I decided on a screech owl!

Okay, sorry, back to eight! Now, I skipped over eight because I actually painted eight on a different page in my sketch book and thought it would make more sense to describe the bleed-through pieces together, being that they were created the same way and also of a similar foresty-cartoony-nature!

So, day eight's theme was 'crooked.' I wasn't really sure what to do for this prompt, and whilst having a cheeky peek to see what other people were doing, I came across a number of 'pin-up' style illustrations. A number of artists are following various other prompt lists, including one of a pin-up prompt list, so feeling uninspired by the actual prompt, I went for a more pin-up style for this day!

At this point in the week, I received two more commissions and a push from one of the current commissions I was already working on, as well as a reminder that if I didn't paint the Christmas range for Puffin Prints soon, there would not be much point in doing one at all. Needless to say, this was about the time that I had to prioritize my other work far above inktober, sad as it was, and so I'm afraid the next few are pretty rubbish! Very rushed and most of them painted days after the official prompt day...day ten, 'gigantic.' James and the giant peach... sort of!

Days eleven and twelve I mashed into a single, very rushed illustration, which I personally really don't like and was reluctant to share, honestly, but I decided to post it anyway since the challenge is to complete a piece every day, not love every piece! 'Run' and 'shattered' here.

Okay, so day thirteen and fourteen I did ...today! On what should be day sixteen. Ooops. So I'm still behind, but I'm doing my best and I intend to catch up if it takes me until next October. Day thirteen, 'teeming.' With thoughts, was the idea behind this one!

and finally, as far as I am up to date, day fourteen, 'fierce.' It had to be Beyonce, didn't it?

I'm not very good at capturing people to look like people, but I gave it a go! Just a quick sketch anyway, hopefully you can tell what I was going for! So I've got to catch up with inktober, but I'm enjoying the process, even if it is extra work on top of everything I have on at the minute! Sometimes it's very nice to have a prompt to warm up before moving on to 'real' work, and it's really helping me get into the practise of drawing daily, which is certainly necessary at the moment! Aside from inktober, I have also been trying to work on the Christmas range, like I mentioned earlier, and so far have been bringing a little robin to life! He still needs work but here he is so far...

I think that's all from me this week, and I'm afraid that I cna't promise next week's blog will be up on time either. Lots of secret work going on currently that I can't wait to share with you, but with the secret works and the shops and Sea Zoo, I don't even have much time to be drinking enough tea these days! Catch you (some time) next week,

Rachel x