Inktober

Good morning, Inky friends- Your posture pictures were so good! I especially loved to see those that were woven together with artwork about your moms for Mother’s Day. We celebrated with a strawberry cake that was so delicious, I may have been loudly singing my own praises for longer than necessary. Jake might have had to remind me that “pride goeth before the fall.” (No more cake for him.) Besides my rather brilliant cake, we had a great week over here, with my oldest son and his wife welcoming their first baby. They are bursting with pride (and rightfully so) while Jake and I are over here tearing up with every photo they send and wishing we were there. I’m half expecting to see Tate reenacting that Rafiki and Simba scene from The Lion King, holding his little guy up for all their neighbors to admire and singing “Nants ingonyama bagithi baba!” (I know you’re singing it in your head right now.) We might have jumped into that proud-grandparent territory too, as I’ve shown his photo to anyone I encounter, including our poor mailman and the dentist. For the prompt this week, show me what PROUD brings to mind, good or bad. And if you’ve got a second, stop on by for some strawberry cake and baby pictures. Love, Alison #inktober52 #inktober52proud

Good morning, Inklers! It was a good airplane week over here thanks to your drawings which were fantastically inspiring (and almost enough to convince me to fly somewhere.) Coincidentally, we were at the airport this week, waiting for my son’s plane to land and I got a chance to people-watch a bit; a favorite hobby of mine. I’m always amazed at the many different shapes and sizes of humans that fill the spectrum of lanky, muscly, curvy, stocky, willowy, soft, angular or sturdy. Not just that, but also how their faces are arranged and how they carry themselves. The variety is beautiful! When I was in high school, I grew 8 inches taller in one year, and mind you, this was before being tall was “cool.” I thought if I hunched over when I walked, that somehow nobody would notice that I was towering over all my friends, so I spent many years purposely trying to shrink and appear cute and dainty, but instead looking like some sort of upright awkward lizard-person. I look back at photos now, and wish I knew to stand up straight and own it! This week, try and capture in your art one of the many unique postures you see around you. I can’t wait to see the tapestry of humans! (or whatever you choose to portray) Until next time, be good, be kind, and don’t slouch! Love, Alison #inktober52 #inktober52posture

Good morning, Inkanaters! All your fabulous greasy french fry drawings certainly made me want to pick less-healthy food choices this week. Nicely done. Now I’m sitting here, not only wishing I had a big greasy bag of fries, but also wishing I was on a beach somewhere with that bag of fries. The problem? I’m ridiculously afraid of flying and only my love of my family will convince me to get on a plane. Visit my parents? Sure thing. Go see a new grandbaby? Yes, obviously. Travel to see my adult kids? Not even a question. Go somewhere fun just to go? Ehhhh…. You see, I’m the crazy lady gripping the arm rest with every turbulence bump and squeezing my eyes shut on both takeoff AND landing. One time I fell sound asleep mid-flight and didn’t wake up in time to realize the flight was nearly over. When we finally touch down, we have a really hard landing and I’m jolted awake while my just-unconscious-two-seconds-ago brain thinks we’re crashing. So of course I start screaming. Loudly. I look over to my youngest two kids and they have these terrified looks on their faces (cuz I’m screaming but yeah I didn’t think that at the time), so now I’m SURE we’re crashing and I scream LOUDER. It takes a couple of seconds of looking around at other passengers and seeing buildings out the windows to realize we are indeed safe and I’m now the biggest lunatic on the plane. Don’t get me wrong, I think airplanes are amazing inventions. I love the old propeller biplanes and really big chunky cargo planes. I get teary every time jets fly close overhead like they did every once in a while when we lived in the desert, and I’ve rewatched so many scenes from the new(ish) Top Gun movie just because the flying is so dang awesome. So, yeah. If I have a REALLY good reason to fly, I’ll do it but if you see me at the airport, please know I’m a mess and don’t judge me for my jitters. Maybe just distract me with some french fries. Love you lots, Alison #inktober52 #inktober52airplane

Hello and Happy Thursday, Inkies! Thanks for all your critter drawings. No, we haven’t caught ours yet, but we’re still on the hunt! I was thinking about how it must feel to be Felix, the Flying Squirrel in my attic (yes, I named him) and having a bunch of humans trying to catch me. I was imagining myself in his shoes, trying to hide from a bunch of giants when all I want is to hide out in my nice little cozy home. I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t be hard to catch. All they’d have to do is stick a good grilled cheese sandwich in the trap and I’d be a goner. You can picture the sandwich, can’t you? I’m talking about really good homemade bread, crispy on the outside, loads of hot melty cheese with maybe a little pesto in there and a slice of tomato if we’re feeling fancy; the kind of sandwich that leaves your fingers greasy and requires 9 napkins to wipe your hands on afterwards. I could definitely be caught with one of those. Maybe I’ll try that on Felix. While I’m busy making myself a sandwich, see what you can come up with for GREASY. Love you all and wishing the very best things for you this week- Alison #inktober52 #inktober52greasy

Hey there, Inky fellas! After a quick visit to one of my kids out west, I am back and ready to see your art again! While I was hoping someone would draw Native American Hoop Dancers, I was still so inspired and appreciative of your hard work and talent. (maybe if I missed one, send it my way!) We’ve had a WILD few days over here. Between painting our attic in the evenings (because I’m too much of a cheapskate to pay someone else to do it for me), to loved ones having babies, to unexpectedly having the gas meter being replaced by the county this morning (hello cold-water showers), to some major construction work inside our house, we’re a bit…chaotic over here; all really great things, just a lot to work around. I was hanging on to my sanity fairly well until I heard the exterminator tell me this morning that the noise coming from my living room ceiling are being caused by FLYING SQUIRRELS. Guys. I have flying squirrels living in the walls of my home! Now, I come from a pretty rurally-minded family (Jake says we’re a bunch of hillbillies), and we take care of fire hazard-causing animals by relocating them or.…inviting them to fly away home to heaven. My parents live far outside city limits and we were surrounded by foxes, kudamundi, raccoons, bobcats, rattlesnakes, skunks, ring-tailed cats, and javelina. My mom likes to blame the hillbilly influence on my father’s side of the family, but I do believe it was her that shot an angry skunk out back one time, mortally wounding it but not before it could crawl under my dad’s office and then die. All Summer long, we were treated to the aroma of skunk carcass whenever the wind shifted. She will never live that one down. And even though I love (most) animals, due my well-documented history of feuding with a family of chicken-murdering raccoons one winter, I’m probably not going to be awarded any medals for peace by the animal kingdom. (Continued in comments) #inktober52 #inktober52critter

Good morning, Inkists! Jake here. Alison went out of town this week and left the Inktober prompt to me, and well…I dropped the ball. We will be back to posting on Thursdays next week! This week’s prompt is HOOP. When I think of hoop, of course my mind instinctively goes to basketball, but if I sit for a moment it opens to a very broad road of possibilities. There’s hula-hoops, hoop earrings, hoop dancing, aerial hoops, hoop skirts, I could go on. Give it a shot, excited to see what you come up with! -Jake #inktober52 #inktober52hoop

Good morning, Inkists! Thank you for your patience as we’re a day late getting your prompt to you. We travelled to New York City this week and while we had a great prompt in mind, I forgot to double check before we left to make sure it wasn’t a repeat. Have you been to NYC before? Living nearby for several years and having family from New York has led us to visit many many times, building a collection of favorite places that feel inspiring and familiar to our family. Yes, we reminisce about the entertainment experiences, yes we talk about our favorite architecture and the crazy traffic, yes we obsess about the food, and yes we talk about all of the amazingly diverse people (and outfits!) we are surrounded by whenever we venture there. However, there is one aspect of NYC that has caused more controversy in our home than any other when planning a visit: the smells. Your nose has the ability to hurl you back in time to experiences long-forgotten and the smells in the city are more diverse than the millions of people and more unexpected than anything else. One minute your nose is jauntily dancing among the spring flowers and french bakeries, and then he’s hit with a putrid pile of garbage or urine. As you walk along a crowded street, the offerings jump quickly from fresh bread and chocolate to doggy doodoo, from mouth-watering herby-garlicness to a cloud of somebody’s smoke (herby and otherwise) and immediately afterwards, replaced by a wave of paper and ink in your favorite bookstore (or 5 bookstores if you’re with the Parkers.) From savory sauces to street-sludge, pizza to poop, or fabric stores to farts and right back to flowers, I love the rapid-fire aromatic cacophony but it’s true that being smacked upside the nostrils by the stench of an unwashed body is not my favorite. For me, the aromatic gamble is worth it, for some of my children: not so much. Your prompt for this week is SNIFF and good or bad, I’d love to see where your nose takes you! Love you all- -Alison #inktober52 #inktober52sniff

It’s that time of the year again! 🎉

Howdy Inksters! Your “COVERED” pieces were so thoughtful! I found myself wanting to know what happens next for the characters in so many of your works. Thank you for poking my imagination! I can’t think of a way to transition gracefully into this week’s prompt, so hang on tight because we’re gonna take a tight corner here; When I was a child, I read and reread the Little House on the Prairie series by Laura Ingalls Wilder. There are several selections that have stuck with me in such a way that they changed the way I think (hello, becoming a prepper after reading The Long Winter), but one of the strongest impressions formed when I read the part where Pa is building the family a log cabin. Laura runs into the cabin after Pa cuts a door and then as he cuts the one and only window, she describes how “…as Pa cut away the logs to make the window hole in the west wall, chunks of sunshine came in…” Chunks of sunshine. As someone who struggles to remain joyful through dark winter days, I LOVE chunks of sunshine! Each time I’ve moved to a new home (and apparently I’m a nomad because I’m up to 23 now,) I’ve deemed that home good or bad, largely on the amount and quality of the windows. Windows afford us cool breezes when the house is too stuffy or smells like the dinner you just burned (it definitely wasn’t me this time.) Good windows let us take in the story of our neighborhood as we imagine all sorts of things about the people and their dogs walking by or the squirrels fighting in the trees. And windows, happily, often let chunks of sunshine fall on the floor, brightening each room and bringing soul-sunshine right along with it. I love my windows! This week, show us all what beauty you see in the windows of your imagination. Be good, be kind, and be thankful for chunks of sunshine. Love you all- -Alison #inktober52 #inktober52window

Hello Inktoberers! (Inklings? Inkists? Inksters?) Your work last week was beautiful (and sometimes hilarious) as always. Well done! Great things are happening over here; we’re converting our attic so Jake can use it as his new studio and get all his supplies out of the living room! It’s fun working from home sometimes (there was a good deal of sarcasm in that sentence.) As I’m quickly learning, a major construction project takes over the whole house and never goes fully according to plan. While ripping out bits to begin the project, we found all sorts of leaks and rot and mold in the attic ceiling so we get a new roof (yipee!) Luckily, this was the best time to find it since we already have a crew here and a dumpster and even a porta-potty, (yes, we are those classy people in the neighborhood right now) but for a full day, our house would be uncovered. (Continued in comments👇) #inktober52 #inktober52covered

Happy Thursday, my inky friends! Thank you for all of your beautiful artwork over the last week. As always, my non-artist self is so impressed by your creations. Each one is like a little marvelous surprise, not unlike the Spring blooms appearing around us. After living in the desert for many years, we moved to Virginia a few months ago and this post-winter awakening they’ve got going on here has all the happy bits of my soul absolutely humming. As our first Spring in this new house and in this new part of the world, every walk I take has a new beautiful something popping up (I think bright yellow mini-daffodils may be the current favorite.) I cleared some old dead weeds from around our mailbox a couple of weeks ago and discovered two little clumps of some unidentifiable bulbs pushing through the dirt. I have no idea what they are and I love this so much more than if I had planted them myself. It’s like somebody has given me a gift and I have to just patiently wait to unwrap it. What color will they be? How tall will they get? Will they smell good? The suspense is killing me! You’d better believe I’m out there every day, checking for progress (and yes, maybe talking to them and giving them old lady names like a garden-looney.) Maybe it’s not flowers you first think of when you hear the prompt “bloom” but just like my mystery flowers, I can’t wait to see what emerges. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to go check on Mildred and Myrtle. Love you all! -Alison #inktober52 #inktober52bloom

Happy Thursday Inkers! As I’ve thought this week about the upcoming prompt, I feel a little silly, thinking of a drawing challenge when so many serious things are happening around the world. After talking with one of my favorite artists, however, we decided that we can’t put the burdens of the whole world on our shoulders all the time, but instead, we can choose to lift where we stand. We can take care of ourselves and our families, we can help our coworkers and neighbors, and we can lift those in our own circle of influence. I can’t fix the world, but I can fix something. I can make some small part of someone’s day a whole lot brighter. There are so many of us, it’s sure to make a difference. I am so buoyed up by the Inktober community each week. Even your comments to each other on social media are so supportive and encouraging as you cheer each other on - who does that?! What a wonderful corner of the internet we have here. So go ahead and dream up some art that fits the prompt of “lift” and then step outside and find ways to use your other talents as well to lift others. I have so much faith in you! -Alison #inktober52 #inktober52lift