Here's an ink illustration from my sketchbook. The only thing more terrifying than dying of the plague might be encountering a plague doctor. The type at the bottom says "A Black Sun Revolves Around You." It's been distorted and abstracted, but it's derived from letterforms.
Annuals are encouraged to seed in the less formal beds in our large garden.
We tend them, photograph them, and I draw and paint them. This is a colored pencil (Prismacolor) drawing of one of our seedling poppies. It was an odd form. Not exactly a single, nor a double and lacked the common cross markings in the throat.
I’m often asked about my Bic pen drawings and how I do them. It starts with a good foundational drawing, the ballpoint pen part is just trying to colour within the lines. I try to do my best to explain the process, but the best way to show my progress is by posting my efforts to master pen drawings over the span of 3 or so years. I have been doodling/drawing with ballpoint pens as far back as I can remember - they were cheap, readily available and always lying around the house. It wasn’t until I was bored during a particularly long team meeting-conference call (around 2016-17) that I started to think about the possibilities of ballpoint pens as serious portrait illustration tools. My first experiments with full colour ink portrait drawings were rather crude, but that’s the point of learning new techniques—as long as the curiosity and the love of drawing is there, you can transfer that skill and passion into any medium. Remember, the most exquisite drawings and paintings you see didn’t materialise fully formed, they started out as failed experiments. Failure after failure after failure. It’s important to remember this when you get discouraged (I've failed spectacularly over the years). The only difference between the accomplished artist and the beginner is hundreds of hours of practice. Talent can only get you so far. It’s the hard work that you do behind the scenes that makes your work look effortless. Keep doodling. Keep learning. Stay curious.
In wanting to get active with my fellow doodler community, I wanted to stop in and introduce myself. My name is Dalton Stark, I live in Texas, and i'm a doodle addict, and an advocate for the possibility of anything. For me, doodling is my purest state of being human. My sketchbooks are a very sacred place for me to practice this expressive and arcane form of imagination meditation, which I'm always trying to find more excuses to spend more time in. It is to me, all about intuition, making discoveries, surprising yourself, having fun and maybe even making yourself and others smile or laugh sometimes. I look forward to being a part of this beautiful inky ecosystem with y'all, here are some very secret sketchbook spreads.
(HB pencil on 74mm x 106mm paper) A dreamscape (automatic drawing) image. A weird one showing a somewhat annoyed elf hiding amongst the trees and shrubs. The face itself was one of the first things to take form and I liked the way the dream construct became the texture of the tree branches.
(2B pencil on 80mm x 48mm paper) Another of my Guardian Spirit pieces drawn on a much smaller format so that I can hand them out to people I meet as calling cards.
⚡Flash Back Friday⚡ Going back to a blackbook doodle from a few years ago. Why am I showing you this? Because graffiti art is, and has been, one of my greatest influences (aside from M.C. Escher). It is an art form I love, and I gain much inspiration from the graffiti scene (legal and illegal). I don’t really show this side of my art to the world, but it is fun for me to create, and it definitely informs my other pieces of work.
2023, Ballpoint Pen on 5” x 8” (10” x 8” Double page spread) acid free Moleskine sketchbook paper, Adobe Photoshop. Based on a photo (by David Redfern/Getty Images) of the singer, songwriter and civil rights activist performing at the BBC Television Centre in London, January 1966. Last sketchbook piece for 2023. 2024 will be my last year on this platform - thank you all for appreciating and following my artistic progress.
More practice. So difficult to get over that learning hump lol. I feel like I am riding my bike up a hill and I'm struggling lol. However, I REALLY want to learn this art form.
Landschaftpark Duisburg-Nord, Germany. This abandoned steel mill is transformed into a industrial heritage centre and landscape park. It's a great location for photographers and urban sketchers.
(Gel Fineliner on A5 Paper) It is finished, even if it doesn't look like it. It reflects those old peanut display cards of the 1970s and 80s which were like a peanut strip-tease as the snacks were bought and more of the image was revealed. It's also a comment on the endless WIPs that some upload on social media which are like a form of "peanuts" in themselves.
"Parts Unknown," Acrylic on Canvas, 18x24 Some actions we will never know the reason behind, and, quite honestly, we don't always need to know the answer. Anthony Bourdain committed suicide on June 8th, 2018, news that was shocking for most to hear. People continue to speculate what could have caused him to commit suicide, some feel he had more to do, to say before he died. Personally, I find there's some feeling of closure or completeness to his death. I don't know what the feeling is exactly, but it's there. It feels like he left on his own terms, decided it was time. I wouldn't consider his death as him waving a white flag to addiction and depression. He said his shows were intended to tell other's stories, tell them frankly and truthfully. It's interesting how blunt and honest he could seem to be about himself, though he kept so many layers held within. Although we'd love to have a clear cut answer, explanation, reason, what would knowing that information change?
As fun as it is, creating new OCS can be quite challenging especially if you don't have any names or personalities for them at all as well as not knowing what to do with them! Now then...They're called the shadow nuisances because I don't know what else to call them,they can be annoying to the peasant teenagers so,it fits.they are another race of shadow demons resembling phantoms (like Snidecious)so they're shadow phantom demons,they posses ghost like qualities too.all of them come in different sizes and shapes,they don't have noses or ears.having 5 fingers.all of them have different colored stripes in their wrists and in their ankles (I was inspired by the stripes of bees, originally they didn't have any stripes at all)they have the usual ghost abilities they can also enter dreams often causing mischief and nightmares as well as having telekinesis.like imps,they like causing trouble with people often making their lives more difficult.they don't have final forms since they can shapeshift into whatever shadow form they can think of.personalities Blue (I can't think of any actual names for them) he is mischievous,sneaky and very lazy,he likes causing trouble no matter what,he loves fun so he is active with his shenanigans with his group or with people.Purple:She is snarky and negative,she isn't a fan of fooling around,she prefers to discover what new powers she has.Orange:he is the least violent but also the most dumbest,he often questions things since he doesn't understand easily,he's also the most quietest (he likes to swallow things and then see them go through him since he doesn't have internal organs,then again in my version of hell,none of the demon OCS I create do) Pink:He is self-admiring and proud not necessarily vain,he loves his body and loves working out often kissing his own muscles which makes purple mock him for it,he loves compliments and will stop annoying a person if they flatter him.
(HB pencil on 110mm x 78mm paper) When doing this form of automatic drawing, strange characters and weird objects do take shape, leaving the rest of the image as dream construct.
From "A Cabinet of Byzantine Curiosities" by Anthony Kaldellis
A young man begged Daniel, an Egyptian ascetic, to come to his home and pray over his wife, who was infertile. Daniel did so and she became pregnant, but people then began to say that it was the man who had been sterile, not the wife, and that Daniel caused the pregnancy in a non-miraculous way. When he heard this, Daniel told the man to inform him when the child was born and to prepare a meal for all his friends and neighbors. After the meal, Daniel took the newborn in his arms and asked him, Who is your father? The infant, who was twenty-two days old, said, that man, pointing to the woman's husband (Ioannes Moschos, Spiritual Meadow 114) .
