DAY 1: DREAM This image is full of meaning to me, lots of symbolism is going to crop up in the following month. I don’t even know what all of it means, so feel free to ascribe what you want to it, dreams are like that.

DAY 2: SPIDERS This is a spider hedge. It is inspired by a Lonicera nitida hedge I used to pass on the walk to school with my daughter. In the autumn it was sometimes covered in white cobwebs, hence the name. It is half of a double page spread.

DAY 3: PATH The topiary rabbit is only half covered by spider webs. The front part of the hedge is watching as its real counterpart scampers off down the path of the inner Bailey of this mysterious castle. Is it shedding leaves, or are they tears?

This is the full double page spread illustration of Day 2: SPIDERS and DAY 3: PATH together.

Day 4: DODGE This parrot has had a lucky escape: it has dodged a bullet! Where the bullet ends up will become evident in the drawing of the next prompt, which will be in the space on the right of the drawing.

4. DODGE and 5. MAP combined illustration.

DAY 5: MAP The parrot dodged a bullet that ended up in the middle of the Inktober Castle on the map of some of my favourite places. It could be me wanting to destroy the whole thing when it feels like it is going wrong!

xDAY 6: GOLDEN This drawing is inspired by the golden hare from the 1979 book ‘Masquerade’ by Kit Williams. The golden hare is on the pennant of my Inktober castle. The dove, frog and mouse are all animals that were included in the original jewelled golden hare that Kit Williams buried somewhere in the British countryside.

DAY 7: DRIP There are three cats in the castle kitchen who represent three of my friends who would like to be cats if they were an animal. One of them has knocked over an urn of milk.

DAY 8: TOAD This is the toad that lives in the moat. It was also a nice excuse to for some relaxing inky scribbling and to draw a waterlily which is my favourite plant. Can anyone spot the other animal character?

DAY 9: BOUNCE Of course there has to be a bouncy castle. The animals have taken over, but some of them are having more fun than others.

DAY 11: WANDER The castle hare has left the building and it is wandering off into the landscape towards the chalk figure of a giant hare. This is half of a double page illustration with the previous prompt FORTUNE.

DAY 10: FORTUNE One for sorrow, two for joy. The magpies have hidden a fortune in gold coins in the top of a castle tower. This is one half of a double page spread illustration with the next day’s prompt WANDER.

This is the combined illustration for Day 10: FORTINE and Day 11: WANDER

DAY 12: SPICY Birds are biologically unable to register the effects of capsaicin, the chemical that makes peppers feel hot in your mouth so they don't feel the burn like humans do. Here is a blackbird eating heartily and feeling NOTHING!

DAY 13: RISE The topiary hot air balloon has come free of its roots/moorings and has started to take off with a rabbit passenger, who looks ready and willing. The brown bear with a tree kangaroo clinging on to it and the hare look on, I think with sadness.

DAY 14: CASTLE There is a paddock opposite the shepherd’s hut where I am staying and I have used the lovely brown horse as a model for the one that is pulling my shepherd’s castle in the drawing.

DAY 15: DAGGER I drew an arrow loop in the shape of a dagger, and though don’t have anything against crabs in general, it’s attacking what it represents. The crab became associated with cancer probably from the Ancient Greek era because the finger-like spreading projections from a cancer called to mind the shape of a crab.

DAY 16: ANGEL This castle dome is based on Wimbledon Theatre,London. It is on the corner of the road where my grandparents lived. I have changed a few things though: it’s made of stone and the globe at the top has turned into the moon. So, what is the golden angel standing on?

DAY 17: DEMON The legend of the Lincoln imp is the inspiration for this prompt. It is said that when the devil was in a frolicsome mood he sent two naughty imps to earth tocause havoc.. One of them went too far in Lincoln cathedral and was turned to stone, the other has come back, playing the guitar and taunting its stone counterpart.

DAY 18: SADDLE A blackbird is pulling an earthworm from the ground. In earthworms, the clitellum, also known as the saddle, can only be seen when the worm is sexually mature. It may be white, orange-red or reddish-brown in colour. Earthworms are ready to mate when their clitellum is orange, This illustration is showing improbable and impossible things, one of which is that the person represented by the blackbird is in fact a pescatarian.

DAY 19: PLUMP The plump wildcat is standing on the plump hen. I have no idea what is going to happen next.

DAY 20: FROST The fountain is based on the one in Ashley Cross Green, Poole and there are some familiar characters there. But how to do it? Well, if I did it again I would do it differently, but only because I had done this one first!

DAY 21: CHAINS One of the magpies that stole a fortune from somewhere or other has met a sticky end in the castle dungeon.

DAY 22: SCRATCHY Things are starting to get a bit strange. A topiary hare is making a scratchy drawing in the castle’s art room. The topiary hare is using ink made from the ink cap mushroom, something I would very much like to find and use.

DAY 23: CELESTIAL A band of actors and musicians visited the castle. This is a homage to the theatre event that I went to in France in the summer called ‘La Nuit Magique’ The hare is watching ‘Lepus’, the hare constellation.

DAY 24: SHALLOW This flamingo has travelled far from its normal homeland. The moat is fine for a toad, but it’s far too shallow for this magnificent bird. There is a Kapkapowai to keep it company: that’s the Maori name for this native dragonfly of New Zealand,

DAY 25: DANGEROUS and DAY 26: REMOVE The castle is having a bad hare day: Two mischievous hares have removed one of the lower stones from an admittedly already dangerously wobbly tower. I have combined these two prompts into one illustration.

DAY 27: BEAST Something has been spotted moving around inside the tower that the two mischievous hares had brought tumbling to the ground. It’s the inner beast of the castle. It looks manageable enough, but size isn’t always a good indicator of how dangerous something can be: germs and viruses are minuscule and look at the bother they cause. This could mean trouble!

DAY 28: SPARKLE The inner beast has proved to be as troublesome as feared: setting off fireworks next to the Artillery store in the castle keep. What could possibly go wrong!

DAY 29: MASSIVE The explosion after the misdirected firework was MASSIVE! There are no signs of animals in the wreckage, perhaps the magic of the castle forewarned them and allowed a timely escape? Let’s hope so.

DAY 30: RUSH How can you draw a rush of feelings? When I started this month of drawings, I worked out the ending from looking at the prompts. It was easy to think of a massive explosion set off by a sparkle from a firework, the rush of the animals to safety away from the castle, which was then to have a firey end, ablaze after the animal’s escape. It started as a dream and it was to end that way, like it was all make believe. But I have become so attached to this castle and all the memories, animals and personal things in the drawings, and now I feel it shouldn’t have happened it has actually made me feel sad that I destroyed it. The last prompt will make it right.

DAY 31: FIRE So here I am, in the castle. I am setting fire to prompts 28. SPARKLE and 29. MASSIVE in the castle fire pit. I Have turned back time like you can only do in a drawing. The inner beast is not happy with me, but everything else is back in place: job done.

inktober 2023

inktober52: 2023

pen & ink illustrations