It's INKtober time!

This will be my first year participating in the INKtober challenge and I'm quite excited about it. Anyone who knows me will already know that I love to sketch directly in ink/pen but can I pull it off daily for 31 days?  Wish me luck. 

Yesterday's effort

This old paperbark tree resides in one of the streets not far from where I live.  I admire it every time I drive by it.  I think it's because of the way the branches bend downwards. I sketched this beauty with a Carbon Platinum fountain pen from a photo I took.   Unfortunately, it's not in a safe spot on the road -side to just pull over and sketch from the car. 

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I'm posting the sketch a little late because I had a bit of a setback with my left hand and left foot yesterday (Oct 1st). You may remember I had carpal tunnel surgery four months ago and my left hand still wasn't fully healed.  I was unable to bear any heavy weight on it such as using my hand to help myself up from the floor or use it for any heavy duty tasks.   Well, yesterday afternoon, I was at the local shopping mall to pick up a prescription for my son when, my left leg slipped in a puddle of water sitting right outside the pharmacy.  Down I went and my reflexive action was to put out my left hand to break my fall.  I have an old back injury from years ago so my first instinct is to always protect the back.

My hand took the brunt of the impact with the floor and it began hurting a lot with a weird sensation through all my fingers!  Needless to say, I alerted the pharmacy about the puddle of water so they could get  it cleaned it up before some other unsuspecting person went for a slip-slide.  They also took down the details of my fall and told me to go and note the incident with Centre Management also.  At Centre Management, the security guard took down all my details, applied an ice pack, and sent me on my merry way.  They were all quite concerned and full of apologies.

By early evening, I was also in agony with my left foot which had seemed okay after the fall.  The pain was so bad that I nearly passed out and I ended up being taken by ambulance to Hospital Emergency.  They took an X-ray of my foot which was thankfully clear so they deemed it to be a sprain from the fall.  As far as my hand went, the doctor didn't feel the need to X-ray it because I could still move all my fingers and close a fist, albeit gently.  He feels the nerve, now unprotected due to the carpal tunnel surgery, was injured and my hand will take some time to heal.  Nerve damage can take years to heal. I know that from my back injury.  Obviously, if the hand gets any worse, they will X-ray it just to be on the safe side.  So there you have it.  My drama for yesterday.  I feel so lucky that nothing was broken but I will be nursing my left foot and hand for a little while yet.

Thankfully, it wasn't my right hand either so I can still sketch and participate in INKtober.  YAY!
I will be posting again later today to keep me up on track with the challenge.

Sketching Now: Buildings Class homework

Hi everyone, 

Thanks so much for all the lovely and caring comments 

left on last Sunday's blog post. 

My back pain is finally starting to ease a little, thank goodness!

No creative lettering to show you this week as
I have been busy with a different online class over the past week, 

namely Liz Steel's Sketching Now Buildings course. 

I took this course to learn simple techniques that will help me 

on location when sketching buildings etc.

You can watch a video covering the course details HERE.

Below is some of my homework from the course so far.
These were all done from photo reference.
Each week, there are two homework lessons,
one that is indoors,
and one that is outdoors.
I've yet to catch up on the outdoors one.

As wonky as the results can be, 

I have so much fun with contour sketching. 

It's where you take a single line for a walk  

without lifting the pen from the paper.

It helps you to get a feel for the structure/object.

Sketching only negative shapes - in this case, the sky - with a brush and watercolour

Sketching the positive shapes with brush and watercolour

The previous exercises gave me a better feel for the structure. 

Here, I laid down the foundation lines only with a watercolour pencil

then followed up with ink. 

Then a splash of watercolour to bring it altogether. 

I am loving Liz's class!

I'm linking up with Sunday Sketches this week
To see sketches from other members, click HERE.

More lettering fun!

Just a quick post today as I'm feeling very tired. 

I've been in a fair bit of pain with my back this past week...

The walk around the lake last weekend aggravated it. 

I have managed to do a little more for my class homework. 

This homework was all about lettering inside a shape. 

Can you see the heart shape below? 

The heart shape below isn't quite as pronounced as the one above but it is there.
The heart is shorter and wider.

We also did an appropriate quote inside a shape. 

I'm having so much fun with the creative letter play. 

I would definitely recommend Andrea Joseph's Creative Lettering class.  

It includes 4 weeks of daily lessons apart from weekends. 

I still have some homework to catch up on so lots to do. 

These were done with a fine liner, ballpoints pens and a little colouring pencil 

in my A5 Moleskine sketchbook.

Linking up to Sunday Sketches again. 

Check out this week's other participants HERE.