Sketch by me

It's been a while since I've drawn in charcoal so yesterday I spent the afternoon practicing. I pulled such a weird expression because I rarely get a chance to draw contorted faces and the interesting shapes they create. When I draw portraits professionally, of course I try to make the subjects look good, not like monster-clowns. But that can get a bit boring.

I took a few photos as I went so you can see how it progressed over the afternoon. You're supposed to work on the entire thing at once, not to go bit by bit... but I did anyway. It was just that kind of day.

This isn't finished; the left side of the page is blank, leaving room for another weird expression that I'll integrate with this on as a bigger composition when it's done.

Inktober 2019, Day 31: Ripe

I went for another grocery store still life for the final day of Inktober. It's all seasonal fall/winter fruit (except the honeydew, who even knows when that's ripe) and somewhat low-carb friendly (except the persimmon, I suspect). You're supposed to eat just a little, though, on a low-carb intermittent fasting diet, not to break your daily fast with a giant fruit salad, which is what I did before I even finished this drawing. No regrets, it was delicious. Anyway, this is what I gave up last year while dieting (an overall positive experience), and I've since added back in a little fruit and the occasional healthy carbs. Diet talk is never especially interesting so I'll just leave it at that, but suffice it to say this still life is VERY personally relevant to me. These foods have occupied quite a lot of brain-space lately. They should pay rent.
I was happy with how this turned out. The honeydew looked especially nice, and the little silver cake fork (a flea market find) stood out against it just like it did in real life. I was happy with the zig-zaggy interior and rough exterior of the pear as well. As it turns out, pomegranate seeds are incredibly fast and easy to draw. The persimmon skin had just the right value and shine. The fruit pressed against the side of the wine glass was a fun challenge in black and white.

Inktober 2019, Day 31, Ripe, by Ciana Pullen / St. Rhinocéros

After devouring the fruit salad I carved a Jack O' Lantern, since it was Halloween. And I got a Trick-or-treater! She was some sort of zombie princess I think. I ate the rest of the mini-Snickers myself.

Just a standard pentagram with some antlers for this pumpkin. Nothing too fancy.

Inktober 2019, Day 30: Catch

After so much drawing from photo references and from my imagination, I wanted to get back to some proper drawing from life. So I picked up this fish from the grocery store, and to add some interesting distortion and a bit of a challenge, I put it in a glass of water. But the fish was so long I had to add a second glass. I rather liked the odd composition, and the fish looks like it's trying to stay alive under the most constrictive possible circumstances (it was fully dead). I cooked it up for dinner afterward. My cat was extremely interested in the entire process.

Inktober 2019, Day 30, prompt word "Catch." Dip pen and marker, 8 x 11 in. by Ciana Pullen. [Image description: realistic black and white pen drawing of a foot-long mackerel or trout type fish. The head is resting in a cut-glass tumbler full of water. The tail is resting in a glass mini beer stein behind the tumbler. The fish's body arches between the two glasses. The distortions of the water and facets of the glasses break up the fish into several different planes. Each glass casts a shadow with scattered light across the page to the right.]

Inktober 2019, Day 29: Injured

When I was 5 (or 6 or 7...?) I had a super bossy friend who was always the best character in whatever we played, like April O’Neal or Belle and then I’d have to be Shredder or the animated clock. She had a bunch of plastic horses, like ya do, but there was one Ultimate Pony that was pearlescent lavender with mega-hair and she always got to be that one. One day I chose it first, so she challenged me, and I grabbed it and took off running. Unfortunately I tripped on the edge of the carpet and fell face-first on the hardwood floor. My nose basically exploded in blood and I had to go to the hospital (never having played as the Ultimate Pony). My nose is a bit crooked now and I’m not sure how much is genetic and how much is battle scar.

The top bit is imaginary, but the nose close-ups I sketched from a mirror. Except the full profile, for which I used a camera phone. That's a pretty accurate depiction of the Ultimate pony, as I still remember her clearly, decades later.

Inktober 2019, Day 29, prompt word, "Injured." Ink pen and marker, 8 x 11 in. by Ciana Pullen. [Image Description: black and white drawing of a little girl falling on her face, in mid-air just about to hit the ground. A tasseled rug is just under and behind her, and a toy pony flies out of her hand. In the bottom third, several overlapping realistic sketches of a nose and eyes from various angles take up the rest of the space.]

Inktober 2019, Day 28: Ride

Inktober 2019, Day 28, prompt word, "Ride." Ink pen and marker, 8 x 11 in. by Ciana Pullen. [Image description: black and white realistic drawing of a woman in a knit cap and scarf sitting by a dark train window. Her darker reflection is in the window. At the bottom of the page a side-view of a subway train in the dark shows three lit windows illuminating sketchily drawn passengers. The same woman pictured above with the same white cap is visible through the window. It reads a bit like comic panels showing inside and outside the train.]

Inktober 2019, Day 27: Coat

I spend a lot of time bingeing on nonsense online. For "coat" I wanted to convey that cocoon of stupor that you get with total media escapism.

Inktober 2019, Day 27, prompt word, "Coat." Dip pen and ink, 8 x 11 in. by Ciana Pullen. [Image description: black and white realistic pen drawing of a woman's face surrounded by floating downy feathers. She looks up and to the left, out of frame, and the close-up is cropped at her forehead, cheeks. and neck. Her expression is wide-eyed, slack-jawed, dazed and entranced. A light like a screen is reflecting off her eyes.]

Inktober 2019, Day 26: Dark

I've seen a lot of illustrators create atmosphere-monsters, and I've been wanting to give it a try myself. They create a lot of atmosphere at the horizon (clouds, smoke, the haziness of distance) and slightly delineate the monster's form (usually tall and lanky, a giant robot or massive skeletal creature), but leave the eyes blank and white (or in color, if it's a color illustration) so they glow. Having the atmosphere at the horizon makes the monster look super-tall, towering above skyscrapers. Here's an example by Canadian and French illustrator Nicolas Delort:

NOT my drawing. This is by Nicolas Delort, a Canadian and French illustrator. It shows the type of bright-eyed atmosphere-monster I'm talking about.

The funny thing is, the original illustrations from War of the Worlds used the same conceit for the killer robot Martians over a century ago. Maybe Henrique Alvim Corrêa even invented it for the novel. I ran across his illustrations a few years back while illustrating for an exhibit in Scotland about the history of sci-fi and architecture. Here's Corrêa's take in 1906:

NOT my drawing. This is a 1906 illustration by Henrique Alvim Corrêa for War of the Worlds.

So I went to create my own atmosphere-monster to express how, walking down a city street in dank weather, you feel both omnipresent connection with the city at large, and simlutaneously part of a tiny huddled microcosm under your umbrella or in a cloud of light from a shop window. I started, naturally, with the atmosphere. I chose a rainy city street at twilight, a time which seems somehow even darker than night when it rains. However I got so into the foreground and rainy street scene that I wish I'd cut the monster out altogether so the focus was on the foreground. Oh, well. This might be a drawing I retool in the future.

Inktober 2019, Day 26, prompt word, "Dark." Dip pen and ink, 8 x 11 in. by Ciana Pullen. [Image description: cityscape showing a line of pedestrians with umbrellas crossing the street over a few clouds of billowing steam emerging from manholes. Behind them is a row of cars silhouetting them against headlights. On either side are tall buildings. The sky is dark and it's raining. The people's silhouettes and the headlights create black and white striped reflections on the wet pavement. On the right side, a corner shop window is illuminated. In the background, between two distant buildings and against the sky, the outline of a humanoid monster peers at the people and reaches out. Its eyes are blank white hearts.]

Inktober 2019, Day 25: Tasty

Once again I broke my "must be personally relevant" rule. I was inching toward the end of Inktober and worn pretty thin, so when faced with brainstorming I just went for a good old portrait. Easy enough because it's my specialty, and usually a crowd-pleaser. Lots of other people chose this same subject as well, a character from Orange Is The New Black named Taystee. While not personally relevant, OItNB is a really good show, the character is extremely interesting, and the actress does a great job. It is unreal how pretty she is without makeup, but that didn't come across in this portrait. I went for an expressive film still rather than a pretty one.
The hair texture was fun. I relied on a few old favorite techniques that I developed when I drew portraits live in the park in the US. Occasionally someone with massive hair will show up and unless you want them to be sitting for hours, you need a few visual shortcuts. But it was my first time using ink pen instead of shaded charcoal, so it was a bit different.
I wasn't that satisfied with the result though. It was overall too dark (but it's ink, so what are you gonna do) and the crosshatching on Taystee's face was too rough. But it felt so good to have the rest of the day free without a drawing looming over me.

Portrait of Taystee (actress Danielle Brooks) from Orange Is The New Black. Inktober 2019, Day 25, prompt word, "Tasty." Ink pen and marker, 8 x 11 in. by Ciana Pullen. [Image description: black and white realistic drawing of the head and shoulders of a woman with a large afro. She wears a cotton prison shirt that looks like scrubs. She leans forward, squinting out of frame to the left, with a frustrated and exasperated expression. The mark-making on the shirt is a little chunkier and more abstract.]

Inktober 2019, Day 24: Dizzy

Inktober 2019, Day 24, prompt word, "Dizzy." Dip pen and ink, 8 x 11 in. by Ciana Pullen [Image description: The picture plane is broken into several overlapping strips containing different images, like a collage. It's a black and white pen drawing. In the main center image a man and woman hold hands as the man leads her down a narrow outdoor stairway in an old city, much like a back alley. Under their hands and arms is another image strip of beer and wine bottles, and over them bisecting the drawing diagonally is a thin strip showing a winding tree-lined two-lane highway viewed from above with a car on it. On the right another image shows a fancy old apartment building with a domed roof and electrical wires with birds on them, and on the left is another image of shadows from blinds in a dark room. In a thin strip near the top is a hand and iPhone on a black background.]

Inktober 2019, Day 23: Ancient

This is about spending nice time alone. I was mostly alone over this past Christmas, and did a lot of traditional stuff by myself. I wouldn't want to do that every year, but it was actually really nice. I don't have an actual fireplace, but I think that gets the "ancient" feeling across.

Inktober 2019, Day 23, prompt word, "Ancient." Dip pen and ink, 8 x 11 in. by Ciana Pullen. [Image description: Black and white drawing of five duplicate versions of the same woman in a striped shirt and jeans hang out around a fireplace. The perspective is from inside the fireplace, and the top of the image is smoke and sparks around the mantle. The women hanging out look calm and relaxed, drinking tea, reading books, and leaning on each other. They're all lit by the fire in an otherwise dark space.]

Inktober 2019, Day 22: Ghost

I struggle with "less is more," especially with ink, so I was especially pleased with the light markmaking in the background of this.The marks on the shirt also look sculpted, which was a cool effect. This was, once again, the effect of poring over some old Anders Zorn drawings. I used a reference photo for the back of my own head, because believe it or not I don't see it that often.

Inktober 2019, Day 22, prompt word, "Ghost." Dip pen and ink, 8 x 11 in. by Ciana Pullen. [Image description: black and white realistic drawing of a woman walking down a banal institutional hallway, perhaps of a school or hospital. The woman is viewed from the shoulders up to mid-skull, and from behind and to the side. Her other shoulder is out of frame. On the visible shoulder sits a tiny duplicate version of her, wearing the same striped shirt and hairdo, facing backward (toward the viewer and facing out of frame). She rests her face on her hand and looks bored. In the hallway background there is a doorway, an empty metal chair, and some fluorescent lights in a drop ceiling.]

Inktober 2019, Day 21: Treasure

I spent all day trying to think of what to draw for this and I just couldn't. I treasure a lot of things and people, but home and privacy, a place of my own in which to be a raging introvert, popped into my mind first and foremost.
Keenly aware that I was almost out of time for my Inktober drawing, I stole an idea from cartoonist Sempé of two lit windows across a city at night (although his was clearly meant to convey love and was highly two-dimensional and cartoonish in style). Then I used an old photo of Paris for reference and changed it very little in my drawing, except to scoot some buildings around and of course to add the lit windows. That's pretty rare for me, as I don't usually copy directly from photographs, especially photos I didn't take myself, and super-especially photos that are meant to be stand-alone pieces of art, as this old photo could possibly have been (as opposed to workhorse snapshots for some non-artistic purpose). Drawing from life is best, then next-best is from reference photos I've made for the purpose, then from video or gif that moves, or from a collection of photos that I can manipulate and combine to create something new, and then from crappy photos that are much improved by being turned into drawings. Anything else honestly feels like cheating. Stealing ideas, though, I'm okay with, as long as I have something of my own to add. Though I do prefer coming up with my own ideas entirely.
However, the Instagram public has spoken, and my least proud drawing turned out to be everyone else's favorite. Isn't it always that way? People are never impressed by what they ought to be.

Inktober 2019, Day 21, prompt word, "Treasure." India ink pen and ink wash, 8 x 11 in. by Ciana Pullen. [Image description: black and white ink wash drawing of a street corner in Paris, seen from above and to the side. Several fancy old apartment buildings with turrets, bay windows and wrought iron crowd the image, all lit from a street lamp below, and mostly in darkness. The horizon is dimly visible across the city's rooftops and chimneys. A window in a rooftop apartment is brightly lit up in the foreground, and in another building around the corner, a window in a middle floor with a balcony is also lit. The piece is overall very dark and moody and the lit windows jump out at the viewer.]

Inktober 2019, Day 20: Tread

This one seemed to have universal appeal on Instagram. Apparently everyone's cat does this.

Inktober 2019, Day 20, prompt word, "Tread." Dip pen and ink, 8 x 11 in. by Ciana Pullen. [Image description: realistic black and white drawing of a cat standing on a woman's face as she lies in bed. The woman's face is all scrunched up where the paws are pushing her skin, and she is mostly expressionless with her eyes open and looking at the cat's face. The cat is black and its back and head are cut off beyond the edge of the page, except its nose and muzzle, which are pointed at the woman's face. The nose and whiskers are silhouetted against her black hair.]

Inktober 2019, Day 19: Sling

Inktober 2019, Day 19, prompt word, "Sling." Dip pen, ink wash, wax crayon, and gel pen, 8 x 11 in. by Ciana Pullen. [Image description: a view straight down a grocery store aisle at waist-level. Fluorescent lights shine overhead at regular intervals. Instead of a ceiling, there is a black galaxy full of stars with a cloudy milky way running down the center. The shopping cart flies off into the galaxy behind the fluorescent lights in one direction and a woman in jeans and a tee flies off in another, upside down in a limp position.]

Inktober 2019, Day 18: Misfit

Inktober 2019, Day 18, prompt word "Misfit." Dip pen and ink, 8 x 11 in. by Ciana Pullen. [Image description: black and white drawing, slightly cartoonish but mostly realistic, of a homeless man. The perspective is from slightly above and almost fish-eye. He's sitting on the ground on some cardboard boxes, while a meaner, more aggressive duplicate of himself stands over him, grabbing his lapels and yelling. The duplicate is slightly see-through, with the tiles of the wall behind him showing through. Foreshortened well-dressed legs walk past in bottom quadrant of the drawing.]

Inktober 2019, Day 17: Ornament

A "Belvedere" is any structure that is designed to provide a nice view, from a gazebo to a castle. In warmer Italian climates they were usually open for ventilation, but as the trend moved North, they were purely ornamental. This is the Belvedere at a local Rococo palace. It looks across a wild field to a pond, across which lies the main castle. A flock of sheep still graze in the field.

Inktober 2019, day 17, prompt word, "Ornament." Ink pen, 8 x 11 in. by Ciana Pullen [Image description: simple, realistic black and white line drawing of an ornate three-story Rococo building surrounded by grass and trees. It has a large domed roof.]

Inktober 2019, Day 16: Wild

Another imaginary pseudo-Classical creature. I don't know where all this Classical influence came from this Inktober, since I'm not an especially big fan of ancient Greece or Rome. I think it might have been the day at the art museum in Barcelona that did it.

Inktober 2019, Day 16, prompt word "Wild." Dip pen and ink wash, 8 x 11 in., by Ciana Pullen. [Image Description: realistic black and white pen drawing of the head of a roaring lion. Instead of a mane it has hair-like snakes, like Medusa. The snakes are coiled in a way that echoes the movement of the lion's head as he roars.]

Inktober 2019, Day 15: Legend

The idea for this drawing popped into my head fully formed, apparently straight from my subconscious with no provocation. I'd like to see these creatures in motion. They seemed like they should be vaguely Viking or Celtic, so I did a little research on how those folks looked. Then I looked up weight lifters so I could get an idea of fat(ish) but strong bodies. The Vikings from TV and movies all had Hollywood type bodies, but I just couldn't imagine someone with Megan Fox's physique popping out of the top of a walrus. This is actually an issue I have with The Little Mermaid as well. Every other sea mammal has a nice thick blubber layer, and so should she.

Inktober 2019, Day 15, prompt word "Legend." Dip pen and ink, 8 x 11 in. by Ciana Pullen. [Image Description: A crowd of walrus centaurs (human on top, walrus on bottom) holding lit torches crowds a beach. The atmosphere is darkish and misty. They appear to be rallying. A male is in the foreground with a beard and man-bun and a few markings painted on his chest, face and shoulder. A female is just behind him with a shaved head except for a braided mohawk. The figures behind them are blurrier. Two centaurs holding torches recline on a rocky outcropping in the background.]

Inktober 2019, Day 14: Overgrown

I recently visited Barcelona and spent the day at the Museo National de Catalunya; I think the armless classical statues stuck in my mind and produced this drawing.

Inktober 2019, Day 14, prompt word "Overgrown." Dip pen and ink, 8 x 11 in. by Ciana Pullen. [Image Description: black and white pen drawing of a Classical Greek style bust of a woman. Her arms are cut off at the shoulders, as many sculptures are, and a cluster of around six extra hands is growing out of each of her shoulders. She has a simple crown or headpiece, like Diana. The background is blank.]

Inktober 2019, Day 13: Ash

I was a bit tired from doing landscapes and complex compositions at this point, so I just wanted to bust out a fun portrait. I broke my "personally relevant" rule and drew Ash from the Evil Dead, as did quite a few other people. There is no meaningful or symbolic link from Evil Dead to my life and I won't try to make one, but I did watch the first season of the recent TV series reboot Ash vs Evil Dead. It was great, I was impressed that they managed to recapture the B-movie magic after so much time had passed, Ash was considerably older, new characters were added, the format was different, and they had a bigger budget and the expectations of "cult classic" to fulfill. I didn't watch the second season though, it was just SO gory and I'm not a fan of horror in the first place. Plus there was an evil puppet in the Season 2 trailor, so I took that as my cue to leave.
This is drawn straight from a film still, though I did add the blood spatters. It seemed a little naked without them. There just wasn't enough room for his chainsaw-hand.

Bruce Campbell as Ash from Evil Dead. Inktober 2019, Day 13, prompt word "Ash." Dip pen and ink, 8 x 11 in. by Ciana Pullen. [Image Description: Black and white pen drawing of Bruce Campbell's head and shoulders. He's grimacing or straining very intensely as blood spatters fly past his face. The background is blank.]