Sketchy Thoughts | July 8, 2026

July 15, 2026

I spent July 1–7 exploring hatching techniques, faces, scars, and a familiar solar-system where a beautiful but scarred planet reflects our own fragile relationship with Earth.

Substack: https://monumentsinruin.substack.com

Sketchy Thoughts | July 8, 2026
Documenting the week of July 1-7

It’s Wednesday again and I am excited to settle up our serial cliffhanger from the last discussion! This week we double down on the Sunday challenge in triplicate and showcase our daily tasks along the way. Let’s get started!

Daily Art | Month July 1-7

Last week we left this piece on a cliffhanger. Now that we are digging back into it, we should reference that those classic horror comics have really been keeping my interest lately. I love the art style and wanted to dig a little further into learning the craft of that universe.

After solidifying the plant life, we moved into the background focal point. It was a bit difficult to convey the theme but I gave it my best. Wanting the reaching hand to be pulling the life out of the person was my final focus. The original thought was to learn how to draw this classic female character as featured in her original state. I really liked the look of the original. Things happen though and directions change. Wanting to conceal her behind something was always in the vision though.

In my head it suggests the reaching hand being some type of magical force that is pulling death forward from life. In the end, this would probably feel like being in a spiraling vortex and that was the reason why I chose that as a background.

July 2 - Finished Piece - Creeping Death

It’s time to start a new work! I snapped a photo of this scar in a MAD magazine.

Last year I tried to draw a scar. At the time my skill level had not quite matured enough to capture the style in my head. This image looked a lot like what I had in mind for that previous effort. So it was a good way to start the page. Something old, something new.

Continuing my dig into classic illustrations led me to this image. Sadly, I have no clue what it is from or who the artist may be.

It felt interesting. Continuing my effort to work more on hatching. It was decided to utilize a touch of this and see what could be found in it.

Either follow it’s course or adjust it to my interest. Either path works and I was happy with having put in the effort.

Sometimes it feels a bit strange or guilty heavy to work from an existing piece. It’s good to remind myself that this is an effort to learn. And as long as the work is interesting, that’s all that’s required of the time invested.

From here, I’m dipping back into some older and familiar territory. The comet in the skyline raining down is something that I’ve drawn many times over. It’s fun and somehow cathartic to work on.

After the comet addition, I wanted to include a city below, but wasn’t exactly sure how far to go into a cityscape.

Pro Tip: I once watched a tutorial where the host casually mentioned that one can make windows out of most any letter of the alphabet, provided that they were square enough. That made me laugh and I’ve tried multiple times over to do just that. 99% of the time it works exactly as they said.

My wife noted that the far right buildings feature FU!

H-C-J-C-L-F-U

It was inevitable that we would get back into the solar system. Bringing things full circle for the comet.

This universe, one where a beautiful but scarred planet lives, is a place of natures magic. It’s scarification has something to do with mankind’s pride. The infection we spread across our sacred planet is sad, in my opinion. We tend to overlook exactly how fragile things can be until it is too late.

This thought may be partially inspired by recent talks of humans trying to lead a charge in colonizing new planets. It feels a touch ridiculous to consider as we cannot find a way to make Earth a healthy place to live for everyone first. Should we not focus on the health of our own planet before laying our hands upon other places in the solar system?

Well, I did not intend to leave this on such grim subject matter but it looks like this piece will be another cliffhanger. Tune in next week as we “Comet to the City” or “Planet Ahead”!

LearnToDrawTogether Sunday Challenge | June 28 + July 5

June 28 “Stick Figures”

We did not get out Sunday challenge completed until later in the week so we have to step back in time! The June 28 Sunday challenge was Stick Figures. It was really fun to brush off all of the seriousness and dip into this. There are two separate pieces here. One comic style and the other a stand alone image.