INKtober 2026 - Confused
Last night I did a sketch and this morning I set my alarm early so that I could at least add a few lines in ink before heading off to work.
I took two more pastel pencils with me to add some colour to the drawing. My idea was to work with different media, but I didn’t get round to it. In the morning, I tried working with oil pastels and scratching into them, but the layer was too thin for that. I did quickly try out the fixative to see if it would cover the oil pastels enough to stop them smudging. It seems to work quite well; I did place a sheet of baking paper over it just to be on the safe side, as this test is also in my ‘Ugly’ sketchbook and I took that with me to work.
I also tried a number of different nibs for the dip pen, but with most of them I can’t get a continuous line of ink without having to dip the pen back into the Chinese ink after literally every single stroke.
It is difficult to say what is going on in the mind of someone who is confused. Certainly, there are many thoughts – thoughts that are difficult to organise or from which it is hard to distance oneself, and this is what I have tried to catch with my drawing.
The Process
Issues
Not able to make thicker lines.
I could add a wash, but believe it is better to leave it this way.
Materials:
- sketchbook - bamboo paper
- pencil HB
- dip pen + Chinese ink
- fineliners: black, red, green - 0.4 mm
- soft pastel pencil: Orange for the face
And yes, I did draw yesterday's Flightless
19.10.26
INKtober prompt: flightless
#artonsteemit #inktober #drawing #freewrite #inktober26 #creative #steemexclusive
This is one of those cases where an artist spent a day on a piece, yet a viewer could spend half a lifetime examining the drawing—never quite seeing everything, and always discovering something new :)
Awesome work!
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Aw, thank you! That is the best thing I heard today!
I am still slow but who knows I can get faster with drawings like these.
🤗❤️🍀
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Well, my comment wasn’t just empty flattery, lol—your drawing is truly full of surrealism. A surrealist writer would certainly appreciate it; many of them have committed their own fantasies to paper in a style just as intricate as yours, effectively turning their work into a real quest :)
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I guess this is what my mind looks like, although not messy or chaotic to me, and there is no cleaning team trying to clean up the mess others claim to see, making the intelligent and creative ones feeling like weirdos and forcing them posting like the cattle does, and into loners.
Your remind me of what @jaynie wrote me longer ago, and the post she wrote about @whales (and herself).
https://steemit.com/world-of-xpilar/@jaynie/the-lone-creative-just-a-little-story-about-my-friendship-with-dean-moriarty-1710771406
What may seem chaotic to one person is, to another, a carefully constructed network (of thoughts, ideas, experiences and words) of connections, associations and logical links.
A puzzle into a puzzle's puzzle or a riddle into a riddle into a riddle into ...
Cryptic, surrealism, abstract, or just simply a piece of art everyone can take out what s/he likes or... dislikes
Thank you for sharing your thoughts. I know your words aren't empty and I hope you know neither are mine.
❤️🍀
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Some people—our teachers, for instance—often forget, or perhaps never knew, that God has endowed every human being with a unique soul that exists in complete freedom. Only the person who bears this soul has the right to direct it according to their own judgment. Along with this come various talents—some so subtle and delicate that they simply cannot be captured or contained by the rigid, uniform mold into which others might sometimes try to force us, seeking to make us all exactly the same. :)
I completely agree with you, this is real good work, great Idea and well brought onto paper!
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This is roughly how I envisioned the illustrations for a collection of surreal stories that once fell into my hands :)
I find this piece really deep.. deep in the sense that it is a true depiction of our minds when confused - many cluttered thoughts that can't be separated. It is an art piece by itself and you know what Kitty, you can truly have your own art gallery with your art pieces so far. And I am amazed you use dip pen. The last time I used a dip pen was in school while learning calligraphy and it smudged so much and made so much mess that I gave up. And you do need quite some patience to keep dipping and drawing and dipping and drawing?
Those eyes are doing all the storytelling , It just looks like it's him against the world
Look how busy everything is around the head, like thoughts just running everywhere and not stopping. Those little guys with the ladder and wheelbarrow cracked me up but also... yeah, that's exactly what a confused mind feels like.
Really beautiful work with the ink. You killed this prompt!
That person is really confused I think there are so many thoughts and ideas in his head and it seems his thoughts are all over and he probably is trying to fix everything at ones. In such situation I can imagine that someone can get a stress and land by psychiatrist. The creation is really fits into the topic of “Confused”.
You definitely have so many different art medium. I like the idea of initial sketch with pencil and then you used ink to make the sketch to look better.
I think the idea of oil pastel was not good maybe that would be an option for abstract rather than sketching. I see that you have done another sketch in your sketchbook next to pastel, but the one that finally chose is PERFECT!
I love your sketch, 😍 I would love to learn from you 💖
Nice, intricated drawing.
When it comes to what's in someone's mind, the possibilities are endless. You can draw the whole world into it and even the universe