Update

 Hi readers, just to let you know I am still working on the blogs for the women artists featured in my Inktober series. I got a bit bogged down researching Algerian politics and modern art for the Baya Mehieddine post, but it's coming eventually. I'm also working on some illustrations of witches from pop culture for Halloween month (any suggestions are welcome).

Meanwhile this is my first day following a more regular studio schedule that I designed because I really cannot function without a routine. This morning was "go leave the house and sketch," and as soon as I walked outside a sudden thunderstorm unleashed a dark torrent of rain. I stood under an awning with some others caught in the downpour and drew this advertising kiosk. My pen drawing style really has changed since doing a few Inktobers the traditional way (with ink on paper only), especially after seeing the drawings and etchings of Anders Zorn. I still have to physically stop myself from crosshatching and outlining the edges of shapes because it feels so natural, but I hate the way it looks. I think the pattern and directionality have a lot more bang for the buck in terms of atmosphere, and my sketching is gradually becoming a little less clunky and muscular. 

Morning thunderstorm, Berlin. Sketch by Ciana Pullen

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 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.]

Scorpio, April 2019: I draw your horoscope

From my April 2019 horoscope project, where I illustrated a common thread in the online horoscopes for each sign.

Final image:

Pisces, April 2019: I draw your horoscope

From my April 2019 horoscope project, where I illustrated a common thread in the online horoscopes for each sign.

Final image:

Libra, April 2019: I draw your horoscope

From my April 2019 horoscope project, where I illustrated a common thread in the online horoscopes for each sign.

Final image:

Sagittarius, April 2019: I draw your horoscope

From my April 2019 horoscope project, where I illustrated a common thread in the online horoscopes for each sign.

Final image:

Capricorn, April 2019: I draw your horoscope

From my April 2019 horoscope project, where I illustrated a common thread in the online horoscopes for each sign.

Final image:

Cancer, April 2019: I draw your horoscope

From my April 2019 horoscope project, where I illustrated a common thread in the online horoscopes for each sign.

Final image:

Inktober 2018 Day 16 "Angular"

Day 16 of Inktober, prompt word "Angular." I previously wrote about Inktober here. This is an edited version, but I'm posting these daily on my Instagram, @St.Rhinoceros:

Day 16 of Inktober 2018, prompt word "Angular." Drawn in the mirror. Dip pen and ink. By Ciana Pullen / St. Rhinocéros. [Image description: black and white sketch of the head and shoulders of a woman (me). Her head is turned to the left in profile and the viewer's eye level is collarbone height, so the neck is central to the image. A big neck muscle is central to the piece, drawn as a big black vertical line traversing most of the piece. The linework is very sketchy and bold. Angular measurement lines break the piece up into planes. The planes of the face and neck are also geometrically simplified, and the directional shading lines also are planar and angular. Round facial features, head hair, nape of neck hair and shirt collar intersect the straight angular lines of the skeleton and neck. Not a cartoony style; realistic but sketchy.]

Inktober 2018 Day 15 "Weak"

Day 15 of Inktober, prompt word "Weak." I previously wrote about Inktober here. This is an edited version, but I'm posting these daily on my Instagram, @St.Rhinoceros:

Day 15 of Inktober 2018, prompt word "Weak." Drawn in the mirror (except the goat head and bottomless abyss, obviously, those I image-searched online). Dip pen and ink. By Ciana Pullen / St. Rhinocéros. This is meant to capture that feeling in the throat and chest when you feel like you want to cry, but you either don't have the energy or privacy to do so. [Image description: black and white finely shaded drawing of a woman's head and chest. There is a goat head awkwardly squeezed under her chin emerging from her neck, stacked like a totem pole. There is a black hole or nebula filling the space of her upper torso. The top of her head extends off the top left of the page and she looks down at the viewer with a slack face. There is blank white background space in the upper right and mostly blackish space around the nebula filling the silhouette of her chest and shoulders.]

Inktober 2018 Day 13 "Guarded"

Day 13 of Inktober, prompt word "Guarded." I previously wrote about Inktober here. This is an edited version, but I'm posting these daily on my Instagram, @St.Rhinoceros:

Day 13 of Inktober 2018, prompt word "Guarded," showing a minotaur in a labyrinth. By Ciana Pullen. [Image description: black and white ink drawing with light sepia brown washes in a realistic comic style. A bored naked woman with hairy legs and giant horns sits in a massive armchair reading a magazine and drinking tea. The chair has a shaggy fur hide draped over the seat, bull's hooves for legs, and the front of each arm is studded with a massive taxidermied animal paws (lion? demon?) clutching a human skull. The minotaur has her legs crossed and the magazine which she is thumbing through is balanced on her knee, her legs are crossed and she's absent-mindedly dangling a human skull from her toe by the eye socket like people do with sandals. Her other hand is lazily holding a big tea cup sitting on the arm of the chair. The scene is dramatically uplit from an unseen light source in the bottom right hand corner and a sliver of backlighting. In the upper left background a few corners of the maze are visible and a faraway second minotaur figure is walking, not toward the first minotaur.]

Inktober 2018 Day 7 "Exhausted"

Day 7 of Inktober, prompt word "Exhuasted." I previously wrote about Inktober here. This is an edited version, but I'm posting these daily on my Instagram, @St.Rhinoceros:

Day 7 of Inktober 2018, prompt word "Exhausted." I was happy with the previous two drawings, but I felt my actual drawing was too uptight. So for this one I drew laundry because it doesn't need to be exact or precise like a human figure, and tried to just have fun with markmaking. I'm especially happy with the socks on the top and the hem of the jeans on the bottom. By Ciana Pullen / St. Rhinocéros. Dip pen and ink. [Image description: black and white line drawing of a teetering pile of folded laundry. Some of it is loose contour drawing, some is a variety of markmaking and patterns.]

Inktober Day 4 "Spell"

Day 4 of Inktober, prompt word "Spell." I previously wrote about Inktober here. This is an edited version, but I'm posting these daily on my Instagram, @St.Rhinoceros:

Day 4 of Inktober 2018, prompt word "Spell," by Ciana Pullen / St. Rhinocéros. Dip pen and ink wash. I'm happy with the image, it's basically what I envisioned; but I realized at this point in the challenge that drawing in this style is the biggest time investment with the least amount of visual payoff for me. I always think cartooning will make me draw looser, but in fact it's the opposite. My style is loosest, simplest and most honest when I'm aiming at realism. Good to know, and just one reason I'm glad I participated in Inktober this year. [Image description: a cartoonish black and white drawing with ink wash in the style of The New Yorker cartoons (that was an accident). It's a view straight down the hallway of a bland modern hospital, from slightly above eye level. A bored nurse in scrubs walks along the ground pushing a cart. Meanwhile patients float near the ceiling. In the close foreground only a man's belly, feet, and one hand holding a cup of tea are visible. In the middle-ground a woman in a wheelchair floats with the top of her head pointed toward the viewer. Just behind her a man floats with his back to the viewer looking at the ground, like a pathetic version of a famous heavenly figure in the Sistine Chapel. They float just under fluorescent lights and are in shadow; they also cast shadows on the shiny floor that stretch toward the viewer. Extra shadows hint that there are more floating patients behind the wheelchair lady, out of view.]

Inktober, day 3 "Roasted"

Day 3 of the Inktober challenge which I previously wrote about here. The prompt word is, "roasted."

Day 3 of Inktober 2018, prompt word "Roasted." Sadly my scanner struggles to reproduce the color of the highlighters I used; the original is black & white ink with neon orange (pink and yellow) highlighter ink. [Image description: realistic-cartoonish drawing with ink wash of a man and woman walking down a street. The man has his head down, the woman looks at him worried, they're holding hands. They walk in front of a wrought iron fence and residence with a window. It's black and white with a grid-like appearance because of the architecture. Superimposed and offset at a -30 degree angle is an orange line drawing of a nuclear bomb exploding and the man covering his face. The drawing extends beyond the borders of the black & white image.]

Inktober, day 2 "Tranquil"

I'm participating in an online drawing challenge called Inktober, where you challenge yourself to complete one drawing per day in ink throughout October and post it online. There is an official list of creative prompt words which people can choose to use, and I am, because it's fun to see what everyone else did for that prompt. Participation is completely casual and chaotic, so judging from Instagram I think around 4,000 people are doing it. The point is simply to improve your skills and motivation while finding community in an otherwise lonely discipline.

I've been posting low-quality phone camera pictures on my Instagram account @St.Rhinoceros but I finally scanned some drawings in and edited them. I'm starting with Day 2 here because I stupidly drew Day 1 so large that it won't fit on my scanner which means I have to photograph it with perfect ambient light that won't leave a gradient (and it ALWAYS leaves a gradient). I'm not in the mood to do that right now. So here is Day 2, prompt word "tranquil":

Sketch for Day 2 of Inktober 2018, prompt word "tranquil." This is my husband and I relaxing in the Schlosspark in Berlin, a huge garden behind a restored Baroque palace called Schloss Charlottenburg. The garden adjacent to the palace is strictly formal in the Baroque style, while the rest is a wooded area around a winding river in the Victorian style of Frederick Law Olmstead with the occasional Italianate formal area around a sculpture. A resident flock of sheep move from field to field and keep the lawn areas under control without mowing them. It's in the middle of the city but so quiet. [Image description: a black and white pen sketch of a landscape with a large tree on the left with sunlight filtering through its leaves, a ribbon of river in the middle with a reflection of the trees and shrubbery, and a riverbank on the right with trees and a sculpture that are illuminated by rays of sunlight flowing diagonally from left to right. A row of formal evergreens cuts the composition horizontally at the waterline in the bottom third. Under the tree on the left in the mid-foreground a couple of people lie on the ground on a blanket sleeping or looking up at the sky. The style is somewhat academic but looser.]

Sketch of my husband at a cafe

Sketch of my husband at a cafe, by Ciana Pullen / St. Rhinocéros

Travel diary, Amalfi

Breakfast in Amalfi, Italy, by Ciana Pullen / St. Rhinocéros. It seems Italians don't "do breakfast" any more than a pastry and espresso. Which is the only reason we were drawn in by an ad for a "full English breakfast" obviously for tourists only. But when morning rolled around, it was nowhere to be found! We settled on a profoundly bad breakfast at this place, watching groups of English tourists carrying cottage-floral print umbrellas and complaining about small cultural differences, followed by German tour groups using sparkling new walking poles and wearing coordinating neon sport-raincoats, probably not intentionally. Luckily, we finally got our full English breakfast in England earlier this year.

Knight in a Hungarian Restaurant

A suit of armor in the foyer of a restaurant in Budapest, by Ciana Pullen / St. Rhinocéros

Figure sketch

5 second warm-up sketch, by Ciana Pullen