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In The Ocean at the End of the Lane (my inspiration for this and many other #inktober pieces), the main character is a seven year old boy. When he says this about some porridge and jam, he has just come from seeing a dead body for the first time in his life. It struck me how resilient humans can be, and how sometimes it doesn't take much--just simple little things like swirling porridge and jam around with a spoon--to remind us of the goodness in life, too. I think children are especially good at seeing that.
Our apartment partially flooded this weekend, and my brain needed a bit of a break from pushing some of those heavy emotional themes from The Ocean at the End of the Lane pretty hard, so I've only been able to do a few really quick brush pen sketches for #inktober the last few days! Our apartment is still a mess and we're waiting for carpet to dry and carpet cleaners to come before we can put it all back together, but we only had a few items ruined and it could have been so much worse, so we’re grateful!
#inktober, Day 11. Most of these are inspired by The Ocean at the End of the Lane (by Neil Gaiman), and I really just wanted to dig deep into that story this month, and do another series with some accountability so I could get back into practice. What I didn't really expect was to have so much fun exploring ink! For this one I did my sketch in graphite, per usual, painted with gouache, and used a brush pen and @marabucreativeUSA's ultramarine watercolor ink for an extra watery effect as Lettie Hempstock disappears into the ocean. I'm enjoying the contrast and boldness of ink way more than I expected, and I know I'm not even scratching the surface yet!
"Nobody was watching me. I took a bite of my toast. It was burnt and cold." -The Ocean at the End of the Lane #Inktober, Day 10.
This little bit from The Graveyard Book took a couple of tries, and I'm still not really happy with it yet. But here you go, two different ghoul-gates to take you down to Ghulheim--though I certainly wouldn't recommend it. "One grave in every graveyard belongs to the ghouls. Wander any graveyard long enough and you will find it--waterstained and bulging, with cracked or broken stone, scraggly grass or rank weeds about it, and a feeling, when you reach it, of abandonment... ...If the grave makes you want to be somewhere else, that is the ghoul-gate. There was one in Bod's graveyard. There is one in every graveyard." -The Graveyard Book, Neil Gaiman
"If you were trapped in an impossible situation, in an unpleasant place, with people who meant you ill, and someone offered you a temporary escape, why wouldn't you take it? And escapist fiction is just that: fiction that opens a door, shows the sunlight outside, gives you a place to go where you are in control, are with people you want to be with (and books are real places, make no mistake about that); and more importantly, during your escape, books can also give you knowledge about the world and your predicament, give you weapons, give you armour: real things you can take back into your prison. Skills and knowledge and tools you can use to escape for real." -Neil Gaiman, The View from the Cheap Seats #inktober, Day 7.
"I remember my own childhood vividly...I knew terrible things, but I knew I mustn't let adults know I knew them. It would scare them." - Maurice Sendak This quote comes just after the dedication in The Ocean at the End of the Lane. It took me two days to finish this one because I was honestly kind of scared of it. If the rawness and real was of it—the kind of realness my brain has been avoiding at all costs. This whole #inktober exercise is a confusing mixture of therapeutic and absolutely terrifying. I think it being the latter is part of what makes the former possible, so here I am. Swipe to see a close up and a bit of process.
I borrowed some button eyes from Coraline today for #inktober! I didn't set out to imply a skull with the needle and thread, but I guess I'm not really surprised it happened. I've always loved Halloween, but I'm really getting into the creepy scary stories this year--at least the ones that seem to express something about what it means to feel pain and fear as a human being. You know what I mean? I'm not into horror movies, or scary stories just for the sake of the scariness, but in the best ones there's something much deeper that speaks to and haunts us with its truth about the darker times in life. In these stories, we come away with more than just a thrill. We come away knowing the creepy, scary stuff doesn't have to win.
I wasn’t sure if I should post this one for #inktober or not. It doesn’t fit my theme and I did it in a flash because it burbled up from somewhere deep. I haven’t been myself since we moved, and I’m really struggling, friends. My mental health issues apparently told my brain it needs to bury me somewhere deep to keep me safe, and the surface me is very detached and not really me at all. This is part of why I’m doing inktober in the first place—I need to get back to me, and the best way for me to do that is to create. So here I am, terrified I shouldn’t post this, feeling like I need to pretend things aren’t this bad, feeling guilty for such a sporadic and emotionally heavy smattering of posts lately. Thank you, all of you who made it this far with me, for sticking around. I hope this doesn’t come off complain-y or hopeless. I just really need to be honest, and find me, and creating and community are a huge part of that for me. So here goes. Spoiler alert: there will probably be a lot of anxiety-related posts coming up. I know it’s not my usual cheery thing, but I’m posting this in the hopes of some healing, and that maybe someone out there needs to see it for their healing, too.
“If I could talk about it, I would not have to do it. I make art, sometimes I make true art, and sometimes it fills the empty places in my life. Some of them. Not all.” -Neil Gaiman, The Ocean at the End of the Lane 🍂I’ve been very quiet here lately and quiet in my creative life. I’ve lost myself in all the quiet, I think, and hope this #inktober effort can help me find me again, in art, in stories, in community with you. It’s been so long it’s actually rather painful to create, like sore muscles that also happen to be connected to my thoughts and emotions, and I feel like a broken record trying to talk about any of it, or how I’m doing, but I also know I need this. So. Much. 🍂 Inktober, Day 2 (3 on the way)!