Weekly Creativity: January 12 – February 15
Monsteras are my latest inspiration. I was scrolling through my saved reels on Instagram and I was reminded of this beautiful spread by @autumnaldrich where she drew a simple but cute potted Monstera. In a reel she posted about her process, I could see the pencil sketch she made of the basic shapes and it made the doodle seem easy enough for me to replicate. I grabbed my dusty sketchbook off the bottom shelf and tried my hand at drawing again. I was so happy with the results that I’ve just been drawing monstera leaves over and over again, playing with different supplies.
A few weeks ago, I visited Midori Gifts (196 Bank Street, Ottawa) with some friends and picked up a pretty set of glitter inks with a glass pen [Red Star Glass Dip Pen Set Silver Star]. At $15 CAD, it was cheap considering how many colours you get, although the inks are not the best quality. The glitter settles to the bottom very quickly even after you shake it up so the shimmer effect is not consistent. You can see a little glint on some of the lines but definitely not all of them. The rubber stoppers on the bottles are very secure so I am confident that there won’t be any leaks in the future, but they can be difficult to remove cleanly – you tend to get ink on your hands no matter how careful you try to be. I love the glass pen though; it is beautiful and so easy to use and clean.
Once I got the basic shape of the Monstera leaf down, I decided to create a complete work instead of just doodles. I sketched out the basic drawing with a mechanical pencil (haven’t used those is so long!) and after finalizing the composition, I then inked it over using a Tombow Fudenosuke Hard Tip. I like how the variations in line thickness give the picture a very comic book feel. I was so flattered when a friend said they were tempted to ask for a photocopy to colour. Maybe I can create a houseplant adult colouring book in the future…