SkADaMo 2017 post 11

… and this will conclude SkADaMo 2017. Not exactly 30 sketches, but I suppose 11 is better than no sketches at all, sooooo… winning!!!

ADDENDUM: My pun-addled mind woke me up last night with a change to the name.

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SkADaMo 2014 Last Day!!!

Wooo hooooo! We did it, y’all!

First of all I want to give a hearty thanks to all the folks who visited my blog, Facebook, or Twitter to support and root me on. Your comments, retweets, shares and ‘likes’ were encouraging, often funny and clever and always more than welcome. Thanks also for doing the same for my fellow SkADaMoers. You guys made the journey all the sweeter and kept me going when I was tempted to simply sit around eating a whole bag of chips while watching time wasting kitty antics on YouTube.

I may have only completed 19 sketches in 30 days, but that’s 19 more sketches than I would have done otherwise.

In fact, to all my fellow SkADaMoers:

You decided to step a bit out of your comfort zone this November, dip your toe into a challenge. Maybe you did one sketch, or 5, 10 or all 30. Whatever number you managed to do… You. Are. A. Winner!

Why? “Why am I a winner no matter how many sketches I finished”, you may ask? Well, because you took a positive, productive step toward revving up your creative engines this month. Perhaps your sketchbook is a little fuller, your blog has a few more posts. Maybe you killed it and did 30 sketches or more! Maybe for those who participated in PiBoIdMoor even if you didn’t, you have some great picture book ideas percolating  now or some great new ideas for a painting or some other type of super cool project. Maybe because you dipped your toe into this challenge you’ll be more toned up to jump into something even more challenging with both feet! Whatever the case may be, you did it and that is fantastic! Good for all of you!

You rock. Take a winner badge!

Now go on and enjoy the rest of your holiday season, feeling a bit more energized. Maybe you’ll take a rest from sketching every single day, maybe you’ll continue do a wee bit every day…

OR…

Maybe you’re a masochist like myself and you’ll join the HoHoDooDa (Holiday Doodle a Day) fun that December brings (starts tomorrow, or any day you can join. Of course the sooner the merrier.)

More about the fourth annual HoHoDooDa later today. For now congratulations SkADaMoers! You kicked November’s butt!

And thanks again to everyone who supported us and rooted us on. You guys are winners as well. Take a badge!

SkADaMo 2014

I realize I waited until the very last minute to get things started this year. But flying by the seat of the pants is SkADaMo tradition, afterall!

Sooooo, it’s November First! That means all the cool challenges are upon us.

There’s NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month)

NaBloPoMo (National Blog Posting Month) and

PiBoIdMo (Picture Book Idea Month), of which I am a participant of again this year.) Wouldn’t miss it for the world!

There are probably a bunch more, but suffice it to say, November is a busy month for some. So now, for the past three years, SkADaMo “Sketch a Day Month” has also been thrown into the mix.

I really started SkADaMo as a personal challenge and gave it the name as a bit of a spoof on all the other November challenges. I even jokingly made a badge, thinking I would be the only participant. But lo and behold, several other wonderful artists, doodlers and sketchers threw their hats, or pencils into the mix.

So if anyone wants to join in, they are more than welcome to grab this badge, off to the side here and start sketching.

(Oh, by the way, I count this as my first sketch, so neener neener!) We play it fast and loose over here at SkADaMo!

 

SKADAMO RULES:

“What are the rules?” You may ask.

1. THERE ARE NO RULES! NO SIGN UP! NO REGISTRATION! NO GIVEAWAYS OR GUEST POSTERS!  No regulations, themes, daily words, Facebook pages or anything else resembling organization. Just lots of sketching, commenting back and forth and hopefully lots of inspiration and craft honing!
SkADaMoers are scoff-laws and Mavricks! (Actually, the truth is I’m just not that organized.) The only code we live by this month is SKETCH! SKETCH! SKETCH! Sketch everyday from November 1 to November 30,or at least try to.
You may not sketch every single day, but by golly you will have tried and you’ll have more sketches in your sketchbook at the end of November than you might have otherwise.
So, there’s that!

2. In the past I kept a running list of participants right here on my blog. This year, however, if you post your sketches or links to your blog on facebook, twitter, instagram, tumblr, flickr or pinterest, why not go ahead and hasthtag it with #SkADaMo. I believe this would be a much more efficient way to keep track and follow fellow SkADaMo participants.

Oh, and did I mention, I’m not very organized?

3. Go ahead and grab this small badge if you’d like and use it as you see fit, on your blog or what have you.

4. Most important rule of all… SMILE! This is fun!

Sketch on my fellow SkADaMoers, (should there be any this year!)

SkADaMo 2013

So, November is almost here! That means all the cool challenges are fixin’ to start soon. There’s NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month), NaBloPoMo (National Blog Posting Month) and PiBoIdMo (Picture Book Idea Month), of which I am a participant of again this year.)

There are probably a bunch more, but suffice it to say, November is a busy month for some.

For the past two years, I thought, just to heap even more onto my plate, I’d make November a “sketch a day month” or SkADaMo (SkADaMo 2012, SkADaMo 2011) , for myself. Just trying to get back to the early days of my blog when I feverishly posted just about every single day. When my synapses seemed to be firing on all cylinders and ideas where presenting themselves to me faster than I could sketch or write them down.

Sigh. Those were good days.

This exercise may not have gotten me back to that place completely, but it did get the ole synapses firing again. And I figure between attempting a picture book idea a day and a sketch/blog post a day, I’ll at least have a notebook/sketchbook/blog filled with chicken scratches of some sort or another again this year.

Better than blank pages and outdated blog posts, I say.

I even made a badge for myself the past couple of years and one again this year.

I may be the only participant, but by golly I have a badge!

If anyone wants to join in, they are more than welcome to grab this badge, off to the side here and start sketching.

SKADAMO RULES:

“What are the rules?” You may ask.

1. THERE ARE NO RULES! NO SIGN UP! NO REGISTRATION! NO GIVEAWAYS OR GUEST POSTERS!  No regulations, themes, daily words, Facebook pages or anything else resembling organization. Just lots of sketching, commenting back and forth and hopefully lots of inspiration and craft honing!
SkADaMoers are scoff-laws and Mavricks! (Really, I’m just not that organized.) The only code we live by this month is SKETCH! SKETCH! SKETCH! Sketch everyday from November 1 to November 30,or at least try to.
You may not sketch every single day, but by golly you will have tried and you’ll have more sketches in your sketchbook at the end of November than you might have otherwise.
So, there’s that!

2. If you send me a link to your blog, (or wherever you are posting your SkADaMo sketches) I will keep a running list of all the participants and their links on my blog. This way we can all keep in touch and root each other on. If there are any broken links, bad links, I forgot anyone, misspelled anyone’s name or any other heinous act was performed, please let me know and I’ll do my best to correct it.

3. Smile, this is fun!

Sketch on my fellow SkADaMoers, (should there be any!)

HoHoDooDa Day 17

JUNGLE BELLS

Super quick sketch today! Off to make merriment!

Speaking of merry, jingle on over here to see what my fellow HoHoDooDa Doodlers are doing!

monkeys and shakespeare…?

.

The SugarFrostedGoodness.com challenge this week is Ape, so I felt this illustration might be appropriate.

I did this a few years ago, as cover art of the Chico News & Review, an alternative weekly in Northern California. CNR was featuring an annual writing contest and wanted their cover image to play off the “Infinite Monkey Theorem.” This theorem states that a monkey (or in this case, apes) hitting keys at random on a typewriter for an infinite amount of time will almost surely type the complete works of William Shakespeare.

Sound far-fetched? It may be. However, there are folks that claim they’ve worked it out mathematically. Who am I to argue, I was never good at math.

I wondered why the folks at CNR wanted so many chimps in their illustration. Perhaps it was because of an offshoot of the theorem “An infinite amount of monkeys typing on an infinite amount of typewriters…” or perhaps they mixed the theorem with the “100 Monkey Story.” Another interesting idea.Well, at any rate, it made for a fun project and gave me something to post for the challenge.