Inktober 2020 – Week 2

Inktober 2020: Week 1 | Week 2 | Week 3 | Week 4 | Week 5

The first full week of Inktober has passed and I have already had a few moments where I rather resented that I had to draw today because I drew yesterday. On the other hand, it’s nice to pick up the art of Zentangle® again and learn a few new tangles. I was even responsible this week and added the new ones to the Tangle Reference page (minus the one whose name I cannot track down).

Day 5: Blade

I flailed around for a bit about what to draw here since I didn’t feel like doing knives or swords or anything of the sort. So instead I decided to draw one of my favorite insects–the praying mantis–with blades instead of arms. I’m a little sad I didn’t think to add blood or anything on the blades. Opportunity missed. 😢

The tangle in the background is one I’d pinned ages ago and I had already used it before I realized it didn’t have a name. A quick Google image search pointed to nothing but Pinterest boards. 😅 This is why you should always watermark and label your stuff, my friends. It doesn’t even have to come from a place of fear that someone will steal your things. People want to find you and you never know where your work will turn up!

Day 6: Rodent

The “rodent” prompt made it easy to go with another animal that I really like: the kangaroo rat! And then I tried to draw it and failed and failed and failed. It’s so hard to strip out the details and still keep something recognizable. So the pose is less dynamic than I’d hoped, but hopefully the animal itself isn’t a mutant and I’m not just fooling myself that I achieved good enough…

And if you’ve never seen a video of a kangaroo rat, Deep Look has a great one. Check out the jumping action as the little hoppers dodge snakes like true athletes.

For the tangles I used an old favorite tangle called Florz and a new tangle called Sworly by Texasdoxiemama.

Day 7: Fancy

I may have entered in a small rut in my subject matter because I went with another beloved animal: fancy chickens! Ahhh! The coolness is built in!!! I went with the Polish Chicken, which is also sometimes called the “top hat” chicken. I read that after I’d already drawn one of his props, so that felt like an extra win.

For the tangles I used two new tangles: Frāmz by Traci Fogley and Spiral Obsession by Ina Sonnenmoser. I really didn’t practice Spiral Obsession enough so the one I drew in my bullet journal (my 8th) is much nicer than this one. Although, once I add shading it will look less awful. Someday.

Day 8: Teeth

I’m sure there are going to be a lot of awesome monsters drawn for this tooth-y prompt, but I decided to go for literal teeth and have fun with their expressions. So I have a shark tooth, a human tooth, and a horse tooth. Possibly the shark tooth thinks it’s cooler than the others. 😆

Also…it’s really gross when you image search for extracted teeth just so you can get an idea of the root shapes. I…do not recommend. 🤢

For the tangles I actually threw in a proper Zentangle string and then filled out the areas with a known tangle called Echoism and an elegant new ribbon tangle called Pearly by Saudra.

Day 9: Throw

I pretty much went with the opposite of action like the word “throw’ implies and decided to draw a throw as in a light coverlet. The armchair and its little snuggle buddy blanket look so cute together. I want to join them with a good book.

For the tangles I used one familiar tangle (Ahh) and a new shiny one called Tri-cone by Cyndi Anderson.

Day 10: Hope

I came sooo close to making a drawing about voting, but I may only participate in Inktober this once so I didn’t really want any blatant reminders of this crap year to look back on. Instead I had recently read an article about how Azure-winged Magpies share their mealworms with each other. Especially when the other bird doesn’t have any. I think that’s a much better message; so everyone share your, uh, mealworms with each other…

(If you look real close at the beak of the bird on the right, you’ll see a little mealworm. I promise the birds will look more Azure-wing-y when I color them in.)

For the tangles I used two new ones called: Membranart by Tomàs Padros and TunnelVizion by Jody Genavese. I really loved that TunnelVizion looked like more mealworms. 😁

Day 11: Disgusting

You know what I find disgusting? Okra. When it’s slimy. Which is most of the time (once my husband made something with still-frozen okra and it cut down on the slime so that I could enjoy the flavor). Anyway, I find lots of other things disgusting, but I thought okra would make a cute subject, sooo…

AND I was even able to use a variant of the tangle Sampson to look a little like the leaves of an actual okra plant. It also weirded me out to realize that okra grows pointing upwards. What madness is this?

Week two is done!

Next week’s goals

I’m hoping to remember more that I don’t have to follow the exact tangle patterns when I use the Zentangle method because variants are more than welcome. Beyond that…I just want to make it through. And maybe also decorate my house for Halloween finally. Really, it was a victory when I cleared off the coffee table enough to properly display my carnivorous Halloween plant from Target… 😬

Until..probably tomorrow, but that will be nail art. Expect the next Inktober post on Monday. 📆