Daily Sketch 20260422 | My journey with pen and paper

Before we can continue our adventure, i have one small piece of house cleaning to do. The image below was a late night sketch modeled after a monster magazine clip of Bela Lugosi. Though it is still a far stretch away from a mirror image of Bela, it was a fun one to tackle and wanted to share it to complete the previous weeks sketching cycle.

This particular sketch was such a pleasure to work on. This is part of a tribute series that I have recently began to work on. The sketches are based on the artists discovered on Substack that inspire or move me deeply. This sketch is based on the art of Manuela Thames . Please consider browsing their profile a possibly giving them a follow.

The pup and I played another round of Sketch and Catch which allowed me to scratch on another page of the new sketchbook!

Repost from previous post:

“Took the pup out for a fetch on the lunch break and started scratching around. Top left is typically where most of my improvised work begins. The shape of a totem slowly started to appear. It was already a touch beyond a traditional replication but I went with it.

In the process of sketch, toss, repeat, of a water logged stuffed pig, my fingers began to smudge the page. Not to put all of the responsibility on the poor pig. I realized on page one that the pen that I’m using is way too thick on the ink flow for this particular paper. We will discuss a change of medium another time.

With the help of some spontaneous smudging, a shadow effect appeared. All in on the new effect, this is where we ended up. 🫟

Sketch book, page two - Totem”

Later that evening I dug into this cloaked figure. It is based off of a heavy metal bands profile picture but unfortunately, the name escapes me. It was a dingy B&W pic that looked like fun to replicate. The skull jawbone and the apparition conjured out of the book was my personal spin on it.

This was a late night sketch. Fitting to be based on a heavy metal spoof, as I was crunched for time before heading to bed. Why the late night? I has just returned home from an evening of heavy metaling with our band! After all of the exciting and a quick shower, this was a nice way to close out the evening and get settled in for snooze time.

Here we are. Friday afternoon. Time to settle in for a relaxing weekend. Catch up on some rest that was subtracted from the previous evening. Was starting to feel a touch on the, “Perhaps I caught the flu bug on my big adventure.” kinda vibes. With some preemptive medicine in my future, I had this drippy face image in mind. Likely due to moderate sleeplessness but it turned out neat. My hope was to attach it to the spell book image. For now, it’s a fun piece floating on the opposite side of the page. Perhaps a creeped out scarecrow is on the way?

Ok. It is official. The sickness was settling in and the cold medicine was not gonna block it out. Time to ride the storm out. Woke up from a short nap, tried my best to hang for a bit longer and then close out an early day with my evening workshop. Where was i going? Who knows? Start scratching some ink and let’s get to bed.

Ugh… Feeling gross. Slept in a bit. Finally made it to the couch. Daily sketch theme was The Weight of Time. Perfect. Having cold medicine for breakfast and passing on the coffee, this basically describes how I expected the day to go. Looking back at it, this is a really fun concept that I may revisit and clean up for a better representation.

Had a nice long nap, some warm food and slowly began to shake off the mucky feeling by the late evening. Decided to skip that last dose of syrup and wait until directly before bed. At this point I was reminded that my original goal was to work all of this section into a creepy scarecrow as a subsection of the spell book. Well damn. That was a good idea that was fudged up. Let me dibble dabble around here and see if there is a way back. Still in the residual fog and more medicine awaits.

Waking up and feeling much better. Not out of the woods yet but no medicine for me. That coffee is calling my name. The daily theme was Rush Hour and this was a super fun way to start the day. Another concept that could be revisited. For me, it was more about waking up, digging in and welcoming the sunshine. I debated putting a rabbit behind the line of snails. haha! Instead, tapped out to relax and drink that coffee.

A little later in the afternoon the idea that my concept is in turmoil was not sitting well with me. This face started off so well that it was bumming me out to think I had gone astray. It’s not a total loss though. This creepo can still emerge from the smoldering vacuum of light and shadow! At this stage it has settled in as complete. So be it. Still a work that was super fun to find my way through and really stoked about that drippy headed creepo in a potato sack dress. haha!

With the knowledge that this page is now split into two sections I decided to touch up this fella that is up to no good. More fire should seal the deal.

Time for a quick sketch before heading off to work. The daily theme was Master of Disguise. This was perfect for me to kick the day off. Low stress, fun time. It was a quick and easy blast in the few minutes I had to spare.

Arriving home in the afternoon, I had started to develop this idea to try one last angle that could tie all of this into one piece. Worst case scenario, I am filling in some blank space with something that feels fun. Gnarly claw and shadow from the unexpected! Yes!! Lets do this.

There was a moment where this could have gotten totally bumbled but the need to see it happen kept pushing me. A touch here, a bit there. How am I gonna make the represent shadow? This was new ground to sketch a stand alone shadow. Glad I took the challenge and stepped over the point of now return. The final piece looks really neat and it made it much farther than I had expected to get.

 

What an adventure, right? We made it. It all worked out. Had to apply a touch of trial and error, medicinal madness and fearless crossing of boundaries. Could it have fallen apart? Absolutely. Would it have mattered? Nope. It’s only pen and paper and the ride is the reward. In this case, the final result ends with turning over to the next blank page. Looking forward to it!

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…is this the end? 

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~ Bobby / Monuments in Ruin

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