I'd like people to think I just draw things off the top of my head; that I approach a blank page with confidence and set to work.  That rarely is the case.  Pinterest and Google Images are generally close by to give me some inspiration and direction, especially Pinterest.  In fact, I usually have collected a whole Pinterest board of images to look at before starting to draw.

Here's a couple of for instances.  You'll see my drawing followed by what I was looking at...

And it's often not just one image I'm drawing from, but like 3 that I use different features of.

I sometimes get so caught up in the original picture that I forget that the whole point is not to copy it exactly but rather to use my hand to create something new. 

(I just love hand-drawn designs, the imperfections are what make it charming and human.)

The only times I work completely from my own head is in something non-representational and usually geometric, like this.

Then, I'm usually just playing with lines and shapes.

So hopefully that's not too disillusioning.  Artists don't create in a vacuum.

This little dude has become a prolific artist. And he's not even two (that happens next week).

I'm really excited to be able to create more with him as he grows up.  The art teacher within me has been itching to let loose a little lately. 

If you follow me at all on social media, you will see that I've commited to drawing lotsa whales throughout the month of October.  Here's today's, a swirly orca ..

I didn't just choose whales randomly.  I thought I was following the official rules of inktober.  You see they have this list of prompts.

I thought that meant you choose one prompt for the entire month.  But after a few days I starting thinking about how there are 31 prompts ... and 31 days in the months....

So apparently it's a schedule, not a list to choose from.  Oh well, I like my whales and decided to stick with that anyway.

I think this flower-y sperm whale is my favorite so far.

I'm not being as strict with myself about it as I am when I do the 100 Day Project in the spring.  It's not a big deal to me if I skip a day (I've already skipped a couple), but it's nice to have a focus for the month.

This week has been kind of a different week. We are in the midst of a bit of remodeling and so our usual rhythms are thrown off. Ransom is currently napping in my neighbors basement, and I am in her backyard on my iPad, while our contractor is taking apart our kitchen floor.

It’s easy to complain about it, but I chose this and it's really quite a luxury to be able to update our home. And I’m thankful for lovely fall days and kind neighbors.

​(Can you sense I’m trying to give myself a pep talk? Cause I am. )

I’m also thankful for preschool! During preschool on Wednesday I got to chill at a coffee shop and work on this pattern on my iPad (you can see I was inspired by my location).

Here I was yesterday when I was homeless during naptime, finishing it up. Pardon the glare.

You can gather that I’m pretty jazzed about repeating patterns now!