inktober

Inktober Day 6: Golden

Blog Instead of being asleep at 23:17 on 7 October 2023, kitt created this:

Can we say that sometimes I just completely miss it? Like, tone deaf and all that? When I looked for golden mountains, a lot of pictures were of some mountain in the golden hour. They were beautiful pictures, and not what I wanted.

I eventually found the Golden Mountains of Altai, and thought, "Great!" The photo by Ibrohimov Barzu Mahmadiyor o'g'li shows the mountain from the Mongolia side. Turns out, the Altai are in Russia. Meh.

I lost the edges of one of the ridges when painting this, and wanted to redo this painting. Then I remembered: this challenge is about showing up, not about perfection, or even completion. So, this is day six.

Inktober Day 5: Map

Blog Yeah, kitt finished writing this at 22:01 on 5 October 2023

Be 100% unsurprised that my map was of the journey from Branscom Glacier to Mount Vinson. I spent some time looking at how far I made it up the mountain before AMS sent me back down, and it was farther than I realized.

I posted this one with the comment, "#inktober day 5: map. Base Camp to Mt Vinson peak: some maps make sense only to those on the journey."

One place where I posted this had exactly zero response on it. It is abstract enough to be weird, so I get it. Priyanka commented on it on Instagram, though, and I have huge hearts for that. She understood, she was on the journey.

I messed up the lighting on this one, too.

Inktober Day 4: Dodge

Blog kitt decided around 21:50 on 4 October 2023 to publish this:

Any idea how rare Dodge is as a mountain name? I didn't either before I started looking for a mountain called Dodge. I could find a lot of Mountain Dodge dealerships, but not a mountain named Dodge. Dodge Ridge is as close as I could come. Turns out, it is a ski resort. And pictures of ski resorts are usually maps of the ski resorts, or smiling happy people. They aren't usually pictures of the mountain.

A trimmed and edited version of what I found is what I used:

Turns out, Instagram wants vertical pictures in a 4:5 aspect ratio and will not allow the taller aspect ratios, because, of course the assholery of Facebook. Didn't figure that one out until I had posted a cut off inspiration image.

Inktober Day 3: Path

Blog kitt decided around 21:03 on 3 October 2023 to publish this:

Hooboy, when I searched for "path" on my phone, you know, the latest 40000 pictures I've taken in the last 2 years, I had 1725 pictures identified as including paths. Of the 22 I was willing to try to paint today for Inktober, this is the one that Jonathan selected:

I don't have experience painting non-glaciated mountains. Nor do I have experience painting greens or trees or flowers or plants. But here we go!

This painting was a lesson in patience. I needed to walk away from the painting many times, to give it time to dry so that I could "cheat" and paint over the watercolors already on the paper.

Inktober Day 2: Spiders

Blog kitt decided around 21:52 on 2 October 2023 to publish this:

Okay, there is a Spider Mountain in Washington state. I looked at a number of range / peak profile images, but the only one that really inspired me was John W Porter's Final ridge traverse on Spider Mountain, so that's what I tried to paint. I really struggled with this one, not having any browns in my watercolors. So, I cheated and used the colors already in my mixed paint wells.

At first, I didn't like this painting. The more I see it, however, the more I like it. If you view from a bit back, the ridge actually looks a bit three dimensional.

Inktober Day 1: Dream

Blog Instead of being asleep at 20:45 on 1 October 2023, kitt created this:

Today's prompt is dream. This was an easy choice. The Pyramid, which is a nunatak that looks like a pyramid and dominates one's view when moving from High Camp to Low Camp of Mt Vinson. My caption was, "I am dreaming of Mt Vinson, and the nunatak that dominates our view on the way down from High Camp."

My interpretation:

Original:

I realized only after I posted the painting that I totally put the light source on the wrong side.

Inktober begins

Blog Yeah, kitt finished writing this at 10:43 on 1 October 2023

Inktober is a month (October) long nominally inked drawing challenge that's been going for like 14 years. The process is

1) Make a drawing in ink (you can do a pencil under-drawing if you want).
2) Post it
3) Hashtag it with #inktober and #inktober2023
4) Repeat to the end of the month.

My plan is to complete the challenge with watercolors, and to have the whole process mountain themed. I plan not to buy any more watercolor supplies, and paint small: 2.5" x 3.75" paper.

Let's see how I do.