• Fish

    When Jacques-Yves Cousteau wanted to swim with the fishes, he had to invent self-contained underwater breathing apparatus (S.C.U.B.A.). What he saw made him want to protect it, since we humans were (and still are) destroying it with our exploitation of the sea.
    πŸŸπŸŽ¨πŸ‚βœοΈ

    ballpoint pen sketch of a barracuda fish in its environment

  • Trend

    I can see my (hobbyist) art getting better with each year I practice, yet still have ebbs and flows in both quality and quantity. It’s frustrating to seemingly have crossed a threshold, only to see my enthusiasm wane because of some outside force or event.
    πŸŽ¨πŸ‚βœοΈ

    ballpoint pen sketch of man with cat and text A situations tends to get worse before it gets better.

  • If microblogvember is any indication, I’m able to write about 1000 non-random words in 30 days, or 1/50th of NaNoWriMo. No wonder I never won the writing assignment; I’m a very slow thinker, hence writer. Words (and ideas) come to me like boots in molasses, even when I was young.

  • Motivation

    The little people don’t need much to make them do what you want them to do. Refined sugar will often do it, hyperactively so.
    πŸ­πŸŽ¨πŸ‚βœοΈ

    ballpoint pen sketch of Willy Wonka motivating a young girl with candy crush

  • I’ve done some research on drawing with a ballpoint pen, and it seems it’s in the indelible nature of the medium that practice is quintessential.
    πŸŽ¨πŸ–ŠοΈ

    Ballpoint pen sketch pages with practice exercises
  • I’ve ordered some ballpoint pens on Amazon for more drawing happiness:

    • Paper Mate InkJoy several colors
    • Pilot Super Grip black

    I’m told the Pilot Super Grip are more opaque than the Paper Mate InkJoy, and since black is rather important for ink drawing…
    πŸ–‹οΈ

  • Commitment

    Romantic involvement often doesn’t lead to immediate engagement or even infatuation, maybe a slight tolerance of being close at best. It’s recipe for disappointment and tragedy as life put its claws into a budding relationship.
    πŸ’πŸŽ­πŸ’€πŸŽ¨πŸ‚βœοΈ

    ballpoint pen cartoon sketch of quasimodo giving esmeralda some wild flowers

  • Of course, Wednesday season one launched on Wednesday November 23 globally on Netflix. It wasn’t bad πŸ“Ί

  • A new profile picture, drawn in ballpoint pen, scanned, and digitally retouched and colored. I’m curious how long it’ll take before my avatar is picked up. I suppose most Fediverse users don’t update theirs regularly.

    Digitally colored ballpoint pen selfie sketch
  • Ritual

    It is said all things come in threes. Black in the numbers, black in the thoughts and black (and blue) in the face. Online buyers, beware of all kinds of shenanigans today!
    πŸŽπŸ˜ˆπŸŽ¨πŸ‚βœοΈ

    ballpoint pen sketch of baby’s third birthday party cartoon

  • Retain

    How do you keep your employees in your failing social media company? Well, those who aren’t bound with feudal bonds as foreign workers you lock up with strict contracts under NDA, and throw away the key. It seems ye olden days of cruel overlords are back, baby.
    πŸ°πŸŽ¨πŸ‚βœοΈ

    ballpoint sketch of medieval building with two towers

  • Since Tumblr is ganing traction because of what’s happening right now to a certain birdy site, I decided to start using it again, as not to clog this feed with my inking foibles.

    thumbnail of a ballpoint pen portrait sketch

  • Update

    We get the latest news about microβˆ™blog from @manton@manton.org.
    πŸŽ¨πŸ‚βœοΈ

    ballpoint pen sketch comic of manton as a newspaper boy

  • I guess there are lessons to be learned here.

    1. Keep that point clean!
    2. Spend more time on analyzing the big shapes, then carefully draft then looking at the reference, not the drawing.

    ballpoint pen sketch of VW car

    Other than that, I’m pleased with this messy drawing, for now.
    🎨✍️

  • Great ballpoint drawing tips from Jess Karp on YT. The most important:

    1. forget it’s a ballpoint pen; treat it as a pencil
    2. use a paper scrap to regularly clean the tip
    3. build your values in layers

    Inspired me to sketch some faces from the microβˆ™blog Discovery Tab.
    🎨

    ballpoint pen sketch of several bloggers on the microβˆ™blog timeline

  • As per that previous post for microblogvember, I need to teach myself to draw everyday objects to a level that it’s recognizable as the object. Random scribbles aren’t going to cut it.
    🎨

  • Graze

    I had no idea there were boxes filled with delicious food you can mindlessly eat from, like a sheep in a meadow.
    πŸ‘πŸ±πŸ₯³πŸŽ¨πŸ‚βœοΈ

    ballpoint pen sketch of a graze box

  • Ice

    Her frozen lips felt odd. Days she had been looking for her herd. There’s warmth and safety in numbers. More eyes see further. The biting wind makes it hard to think. Soon sleep will come, everlasting slumber.
    🦣🧊πŸ₯ΆπŸŽ¨πŸ‚βœοΈ

    ballpoint sketch demonstrating the concept of ice

  • Maybe we should have a competition for amusing server error pages πŸ’‘

  • Repeat

    In the olden days we all could still write computer programs to illustrate today’s prompt. It isn’t old, though, but retro. It was a brief period when one person could still fully grasp every aspect of their computer and create carefree.
    πŸŽ¨πŸ‚βœοΈπŸ‘¨β€πŸ’»

    ballpoint sketch of Commodore 64 computer and monitor, displaying basic program and its output from a for-next loop