INKtober 2026 - Beacon

It feels as if I have to start again. Somehow, after three weeks it annoys me that I didn't use one theme for all prompts.

I don’t want to draw a lighthouse (I’d already had that idea when I saw the ‘rescue’ prompt). It’s far too obvious, too. It won’t be a lifebuoy either, nor the night light by the front door, nor the burning candle behind the window. So what’s left?
A beacon is nothing more than a landmark, and as such it offers safety. A light in the darkness.

I’m thinking of Hansel and Gretel or Tom Thumb, because I love fairy tales. In both stories, breadcrumbs and later pebbles are scattered to help find the way out of the dark forest and back home.
Instead of these children, I’m going to consider the human’s replacement: the robot. Programmed like a human, it therefore possesses the ‘knowledge’ that it is real, that it exists, and that it is not a machine. Both the search for companionship and a home are thus a reality.

When something is programmed to carry out certain actions, no thought is given to them. In humans, this is the case with learnt behaviour, which we call automatism.
In the case of the robot, there is no forest in which to get lost, nor the logic to leave no trail behind in order to find the way back

I made the sketch yesterday and tonight I used the "empty" fineliner (such a strange sweet smell the "joie the vivre" has). It seemed to work for a while and next the struggle started. I used the new BIC fineliner and noticed the same issues. I wonder if it is the bamboo paper.

The Process

Issues

• Fineliner is limited and stops drawing
• It is hard to finish and make it look better. I thought about the unleash, but since this already took me one hour (sketch excluded). I decided to stop.

Materials:

• sketchbook - bamboo paper
• pencil HB
• fineliners: black, green - 0.4 mm

_{22.10.26
INKtober prompt: beacon
#artonsteemit #inktober #drawing #freewrite #inktober26 #creative #steemexclusive}