My paintings of the hills behind our house are done and framed and up on the wall!



Golden Open acrylic on canvas. Really pleased with the gold floater frames from PictureFrames.com. Here's how they look in the room.

Unlike in 2015, I wasn't as diligent about sketching every single day for this year's Inktober. Distractions included the ongoing soap opera that is our election. Still, I managed to crank out a good number of drawings.

Here's a quick portrait of M. done with a bottle of Higgins Blue waterproof ink that I found at a tag sale ages ago.



A quick one of Santa Teresa County Park on an overcast day.



And the KQED building in downtown San Jose.



The interior of a deli in Carmel.



The third and final Clinton-Trump debate.



Faces from The Late Show with Stephen Colbert.



The corner of 18th and Guerrero in San Francisco's Mission district, while waiting for a dinner reservation.



A carpet beetle, to serve as the reference for my Halloween costume.



A quick prep sketch for a commission I'm working on.



The Mountain View train station, while waiting for the MVGO shuttle to the office.



Inktober wouldn't be Inktober without some surreal word association sketches (M. opens vintage National Geographic magazines and gives me five words at random; my task is to tie them together in a drawing).







Some faces from TV.





And last but not least, a little Halloween sketch.



That's it for this year's installment of Inktober!

I've been working on a pair of paintings of the hills behind our house. Took the reference photos on a hike and sketched it out quite a while ago. Now committing it to canvas using Golden Open Acrylics and the biggest brushes I can find in my studio. I'm starting with a red underpainting and laying in big blocks of color.

Several weeks ago, M. and I enjoyed a hike, picnic, and sketch excursion with artist Suhita Shirodkar and her family. It was fun to see the other part of the park that is right behind our back yard. At certain times we couldn't see anything except trees, the trail, and green hills all around us (and power lines, of course). It was nearly like being in Ireland.









Bonus: M. found a deer skull as we were hiking back to the parking lot. Will have to clean it up a bit before we decide whether to display it.

Here's Suhita's account of the day.