It's that time again. The autumn leaves are falling, our fingertips are freezing and the Inktober event is in full swing. ...Ish.

I made a poll at the beginning of the month asking for thoughts on Inktober, the popular October art tradition: the consensus was non-committal, with the majority either being wishy-washy on the idea or outright refusing. Is it any surprise? Making art is already enough of a process without churning out daily pieces, which are disruptive by nature due to being free work sandwiched in-between jobs, school and life obligations. This response is on top of countless counterposts I've seen just browsing my feed. For health-related reasons or not having enough time, I'm really happy to see artists prioritizing other things, to be honest. Burnout is a pretty serious issue without adding FOMO to the mix. 

Burnout is so serious, in fact, it can literally make you sick. It's an easy trap to fall into as a freelancer, as well, since you're in the position of having to dictate your own hours and find your own work. Getting said work? Often means creating free work in the hopes of someday being paid for it. More than once I've found myself working ridiculously long days without a full break. I've even come down with illnesses that don't usually affect my age group (which I'll talk about in a later post). Does that mean I'm against the concept of Inktober or any variant thereof? Not at all! Daily art exercises have their time and place: 

If you're feeling guilty for not participating, however...that's when you're deprioritizing artistic growth in favor of FOMO: a fluff goal for shallow social media attention that doesn't amount to anything substantial. Art deserves better than that, right?

​So, why am I sort-of-kind-of participating? Well, I figured this month was a good opportunity to push myself back into experimenting. I miss just being...loosey-goosey with my paintings. Scribbling down whatever and seeing where it takes me. I talked about this in my last post, on how old work can sometimes be stronger than new work, and I'm eager to touch base with myself. Rather than dwell, I'm dedicating some (keyword: some) days in October to my own spin: Paintober.

It's been a lot of fun crafting new brushes and playing around. These took a few hours each: unlike my last Paintober, the only overarching theme of this month is to just let my imagination and hand run loose. 

Used a reference to create a portrait of an older character of mine (you might recognize him from my portfolio's character art section). Had a fellow ask if they could use this painting as their background wallpaper. I don't know what's sweeter: having my art greet someone every time they turn on their computer or being asked in the first place.

​This one was a challenge...and, believe it or not, it wasn't the architecture, but the color scheme that gave me the most trouble! I went in with the goal to push my buildings and sense of space, yet ended up seriously flubbing the colors and having to do a bunch of tweaks. All-in-all, a very illuminating painting. I might just recycle it into something more portfolio-worthy. It's the kind of old-fashioned whimsy I've been craving in my work lately.

I just...love Spyro so much. What else can I even say at this point?

What I love about smaller paintings is how they allow me to get out ideas without committing too much time. I have a lot on my plate and, as much as I'd love to churn out endless fancy illustrations...I just can't! Additionally, this gives me more incentive to step up my speedpaint game. One hour or less! I've already got new custom brush packs I've been working on. Now to take things a step further and go back to studying some of my favorite concept artists. I've always been a fan of Feng Zhu and Jason Chan, among others.

Sometimes you don't know how a piece is going to turn out. It's the eternal conundrum: do you keep going with a sketch that's quite not working...or start over?

I've gotten better at resolving this over the years. At this point I can tell when something isn't going to go where I want it to, no matter how hard I try. One common sign of this is when I rework a certain area of a painting over and over and over. Other times I'll notice something is wrong when there is an abnormally huge gap between the preliminary stages and the final sketch. Art is a conversation. It'll go in places you don't always expect and, just like any dialogue, you should take warning signs at face value.

Sometimes, though...unpredictability is your friend.

Sometimes you're not sure where your art is going...and that's the best part. The pieces are laid before you, the ideas and the mood are there, but you haven't arranged them into anything resembling sense yet. This is, honestly, one of my favorite ways to paint. This illustration below originally started out as a bunch of ovals and circles. ​No thumbnail. No rough draft or references. Just a mess of blobs I shuffled around until they gradually formed an image in my head. This tends to be what I do when I'm having a hard time creating work and want to push myself. As is my wont, I go for a half-human creature. 

What can I say? I know what I like.

This method of laying down shapes and shuffling them around isn't unlike whittling away at a block of clay. I elongated the oval, added a face and neck to the circles, then kept working from there. I tend to vacillate between sketching the old-fashioned way and laying down blocky shapes. The collision of the draftswoman and the fine artist. I wish I had the first few passes screencapped, but, again...I didn't know where I was going with this! 

Throughout this sketching and blocking stage I intentionally kept the other harpies in the backdrop and foreground more faded. It's actually a touch I wish I kept in the coloring stage. A little more atmospheric perspective would have gone a long way to tie the whole piece together. Live and learn!

It's fascinating thinking about how much of our life bleeds into our art without our knowing it. As I was detailing the wings and feathers I remember thinking about how much calmer I felt. How my normally frazzled mind finally slowed to a crawl. On a conscious level, I prefer complex work because of how easy it is to get lost in all the details. There's always something else to discover with every new viewing! On a subconscious level, however...I've realized I gravitate to details due to how they relaxe my mind and heart. When you're mentally ill? That's not a feature you can take lightly.

Flow is a psychological phenomenon where intense focus and relaxation has us losing sense of time. Painting is a popular way of achieving this, though you can just as easily enjoy flow by crocheting, knitting, playing piano, dancing or cooking. Any activity that gets your hands moving and your mind lost in the sway of your work. You know you've done a good job when you glance at the clock and wonder where the past three hours have run off to.

Once everything started coming together I pulled up a few references of crows over on Google. Even the most whimsical and freeform piece will be better off with a visual aid or two.

Color remains one of my strong points. I had no idea what sort of scheme I wanted to do here and, just like the sketching stage, I went with whatever felt good at the time. It's something I'm going to focus just a little less on going forward, just so I can give my technical drawing and perspective skills time to catch up. This isn't to say I still don't have areas to improve! I just know color theory isn't tripping me up as much compared to, say, urban landscapes.