So that’s Inktober done for another year. I totally failed last year with an overly ambitious plan, but cracked it this year by being quick and free.
I also took the decision to avoid colour and only use Platinum Carbon Ink which is permanent for watercolour and also very friendly to fountain pens. For 90% of the posts, I also used a Japanese Brush Pen which I filled with the same ink.
The whole month seems to have progressed into a series of portraits, for the most part.
For each post I doused the background in clear water first, then added more ink and let it disperse. This proved to be quite a lottery on the finished effect which could really only be controlled by the level of dilution before adding it to the paper. The only downside being that throughout the series you can see a regular pattern where the paper buckled and pooled the ink. Leaving it to dry made the best impression, whereas using a hair dryer seemed to flatten the effect.
Anyway it was a fun month. I tried to be less literal in the interpretation of the prompts, but that proved difficult for a couple such as “Eagle” and “Armadillo”.
Inktober always rekindles my interest in doodling again, and so I’ve got a few more ideas to take forward to Christmas.