Inktober Day 12: This year at EarthSpirit Community’s Twilight Covening, I am in the Crane clan. We spend much of the day singing Lithuanian sutartines, as taught by Will and Lynn Rowan. These songs are sung in parts, with buzzing, sparkling harmonies, like autumn katydids, spring peepers, or I suppose in Lithuania, flocks of cranes. There is space for breathing built into the songs, so you can sing them literally for an hour without fatigue.
Inktober day 11. I am at EarthSpirit’s Twilight Covening, and off the official Inktober prompts. This came after the evening Releasing Fire on the beach, letting go of anything that might hinder me from opening myself fully to the weekend’s offerings.
Inktober day 10: Pattern
My first formal schooling was at Mrs. Coventry’s School in Dacca, East Pakistan. I loved when we were assigned to copy patterns on lined paper. To my American ears, it sounded like “pattens”. I think the theory was dexterity practice toward eventual penmanship
I still love repeating designs, and I love the feeling of writing longhand, even when I don’t have words I want to write. That doesn’t bother me; as a child I was surrounded by writing in characters I was not taught to read, and by languages I never really learned to speak.
I still love to hear the sound of other languages even if I don’t understand them, and various non-language calligraphy makes its way into not a few of my drawings.
Inktober day 9: Swing.
Inktober day 8: Frail
I am grateful to the community of artists and illustrators I follow on Twitter, who generously share words and pictures of their work, their process, and their lives. Though I can’t aspire to their level of craft and professionalism, they provide inspiration that feeds my daily drawing practice.
sing me a moon, sing me a star.
Inktober day 7: Enchanted
Inktober day 6. The prompt was “Husky”, but I went with “Husk”.
Inktober day 5: ‘Build’
I’m noticing how hard I lean on colors to make a picture ‘work’– I’d hoped to work only with black ink this month, but get near the end of my drawing time and don’t feel like I can pull it together without some washes of colored inks. At least it’s all ink.
Inktober official prompt for the day was ‘Freeze’. How fitting that we got our first touch of frost tonight!
Inktober day 3: Bait.
eyespider 