Cactus Flower in pen and ink

Just a sketchbook doodle. Turned out not too badly for how quickly it was done, though.

Propagating. Ad absurdum.

This week's Illustration Friday prompt is propagate. I've been having some health weirdness lately (nothing serious. Just apparently never ending) and haven't been in much of mind for concentration, so I wasn't really sure what to do with this. I was, however, in a mind for pattern.

I'll admit, I have a bit of a strange thing for pattern anyway. It's not often that I'm not in a mind for pattern. Pattern it was, then. I gave myself a couple of simple rules for what happens when a certain branching pattern intersects, and then got out my scribble book to see how the pattern would propagate.

Um, that would be my scribble book as opposed to my sketchbook, which I try to keep somewhat neater. I'm just a liiittle OCD at times...

Anyway. Trial one you see above. It's... ok. Basic branching, some neat negative space, but just not really what I thought I was headed to.

Trial two appealed to my screwed-up head more, for whatever reason.

I'm not sure I even want to know why.

If I had to guess, though, it might be because it's more graphic.

Or more flowing.

Or more distracting to do, which at the moment counts as a very good thing. I needed to be distracted.

I'm not especially happy with the pen strokes on either of these propagations, but I'm choosing to blame that on the lap-full of very persistent cat that I had at the time.

Don't worry. She won't mind. She knows she's persistent.

Anyway. Version two worked for me, so I got out the bigger sketchbook and tried out a less-busy version of the same thing. I think I'll count this one as my actual IF entry, but if you'd rather count one of the others that's fine by me.

I hope all of this counts as propagate, though. I think it does. A set of simple motions repeated over and over into a picture? Sounds like some sort of propagation.

Or, if nothing else, some sort of stress relief. That's what I was really in need of in the end.

The last version was really just for fun. Thought I'd try the same sort of thing in pencil, add some very indifferent shading (where exactly was the imaginary light source, again?), and see what it looked like.

Sort of like a very unlikely tree, I guess.

Or a frighteningly mutated antler.

Anyone want to ask me what kind of medication I've been taking now?...

Maple and mutter in pen and ink

This week's Illustration Friday prompt is focussed (or focused, if you prefer).

Apparently I couldn't get focussed enough this weekend to doodle something focussed, so here's a partially-focussed journal page instead.

Click on the photo if you're desperate to read the mutter.

Oh, and the scientific name for Manitoba Maple, for anyone as nitpicky as I apparently am, is Acer negundo. And now we all know...