October Round-up: A month of foraging and ink making

Discover the best of October in The Creative Flock + studio highlights

Hello! And if this is the first post you’re reading, welcome! I share these posts with all subscribers at the end of each month, Its a lovely way to highlight all the things we’ve done in the membership and share some behind-the-scenes snippets from my studio.

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To recap, October’s theme was Ink and Eerie Tales.

This month, I’ve delved through my bookshelves for spooky books to recommend with you, and i’ve been getting my hands gloriously dirty with inks.

Making ink from scratch has been a real learning curve but it’s safe to say i’m now obsessed with foraging and making my own. It’s appealing to me for many reasons, but what’s really got me gripped is the alchemical magic about the process and how something we might typically overlook or discard can be turned into something useful and beautiful.

I have more ink making projects in the pipeline and i’m looking forward to sharing them with you!

It’s been a very busy month for me, read on to see what we’ve been up to in the membership and what i’ve been creating in the studio.

Live, monthly drawing sessions

This month I put together an Eerie Alphabet-themed drawing session, using word prompts and image references to create our own spookily illustrated A's, B’s and C’s.

Paid members can catch up on our drawing session below:

My practice run for the session

I created small panels during the session, working in black and white.

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I also had a guest spot on the Introvert Drawing Club and co-hosted an 80’s Halloween Drawing Party with the wonderful

Beth Spencer

who came dressed as a Caran D’Ache crayon! 🤩 I opted for an 80’s teen look, heavy on the pink blusher and plastic jewellery.

Thank you to everyone who came along and thank you to beth for having me as a co-host!

Some of my sketches from the session

In this post I shared my ink painting techniques to help bring atmosphere to your work:

The highlight of the month has been creating my own drawing ink and it’s fast becoming a obsession! 😆 I made Elderberry and Inkcap Mushroom ink and I have plans to make alder cone, elder stem and oak gall ink.

In this post I share my experiments in ink making, including the processes involved in making two ink types, testing them on paper and tips for anyone who’s interested in starting their ink-making journey.

For all my subscribers, I selected four spooky children’s/YA books to share with you this Halloween. 👻

I also shared these posts from last October. All subscribers can access these:

Magic & Witchcraft themed drawing session - replay

"Look up, look up, for there are other places and other things."

Co-Sketching sessions

We had two more co-sketching sessions this month, thank you to those who came along!

I wouldn't have created these drawings had I not blocked out that time, that’s what’s so good about co-working, it holds you accountable. Thank you to Emma Carlisle for introducing me to these!

There’ll be two more free co-sketching sessions in November, available to all subscribers and I’ll share details in my Welcome to November post, which is coming next. Subscribe to stay updated.

Nature highlights from my neck of the woods…

So much fungi this month! And the hedgerows were studded with berries ❤️

Now that migratory birds have left us, the winter birds are taking the limelight. I’ve heard and seen blue tits, great tits, long tailed tits, wrens, robins, blackbirds, and was very excited to spot a pair of gold crests in my garden.

There’s been a lot of buzzards around and the occasional Kestral too.

Top-Bottom/Left-Right: Mushroom in my local nature reserve; stunning autumn colours of a virginia creeper; shaggy inkcap mushroom; waxcap mushrooms; oak gall nuts; honey fungus: bracket fungus; hawthorn berries; stags horn fungus

Me and my family helped protect this caterpillar from the trampling feet of pumpkin pickers at a local farm.

I enjoyed some walks in the autumn sunshine, marveling at the changing colours of the leaves on the trees 🧡

What’s been your nature highlight this month?

When i’m not drawing or insect spotting i’m…

Reading:

I revisited Thornhill by Pam Smy and The Skull, by Jon Klasson, which were two of my ‘eerie tales’ recommended reads this month.

Listening to:

• Adam Buxtons’s podcast featuring the inimitable John Cooper Clarke

• A favourite podcast of mine, A life More Wild by Canopy & Stars. This month I listened to the episode featuring ethnobotanist James Wong as he took a visit to Kew Gardens in London.

Eating:

As the nights draw in here, i’m craving comfort food and we’ve had our first roast dinner of the autumn and two apple and blackberry crumbles! 😋

We’re two thirds of the way through the elderberry syrup I made, it’s been delicious on figs and yogurt for breakfast and made a great addition to the crumble mixture.

Once this runs out i’ll be making rose hip oxymel, based on a great recipe in this post from

Ali Edwards

and

Jo Thomas

.

And finally..

I’ve done a fair bit of extra drawing this month, joining in with Patreon and Substack sessions, including Beth Spencer and Samantha Dion Bakers cat session, La Scarlatte witches familiar session, Sarah Dyer’s very creepy Halloween folk costume session and Holly Surplice’s fabulous birds of prey session. Gimli the snowy owl really captured my heart 🤍

I also (finally) got round to creating a badge for Beth’s DTIYS ‘Created with Human Intelligence’ drawing challenge! 🙌

I hope you enjoyed this round-up! I’ll be announcing the theme for November in my next post.

As always, thank you for your support here and if you are celebrating, have a very happy Halloween! 🎃

This publication is reader-supported and enables me to do what I love, which is creating art and illustrations and sharing it with the community here on Substack. If you would like to access the full membership, consider upgrading your subscription, details of benefits are here