Hello again. I’m not finished with ink blots for the Kick-About. And I‘m not finished with islands reflected in still water.

It’s not the first time I’ve gone down this road. I remember printing dozens and dozens of icebergs and islands for When You’re Older. In some illustrations I was conflicted because I liked the reflections on the water surface, but I was also enchanted by the creatures underneath the surface.

Question: How to have both in the one illustration?
Answer: Not easily.

But back to the current time! Yes, I did produce something new for this Kick-About prompt. The theme makes me think of (self) reflection, and it seems the world is full of people who see themselves in different ways.

Some don’t like what they see.
Some delight in it.
Some refuse to look at themselves at all.
Some see a version of themself that is invisible to others.
And the opposite is also true.

I sketched 12 small characters with dip pen and ink, to place into a scene of self reflection. Here are a few of them. (below)

Then I printed a few ink blots. A couple really do look like very interesting moths, (I’m not sure what that means about my personality type) and they are begging to be used as collage materials for something else. But they don’t suggest islands to me, so I used the more solid results.

This ink blot on yellow paper is so evocative of a rocky island, that it didn’t need my interference at all. And the yellow just added to the atmosphere. But I wanted to use at least one of my characters, so I added some mist, and background islands, and then put my character in.

I was quite pleased with the result, and I feel for this little creature having an identity crisis, all alone. Although the text is at a scale that would work best on a full page illustration, and is probably illegible at this size.

And then I played with a second character with no background at all. I think this funny little creature is a cousin of the legendary Narcissus, but if you flip the image upside down, you have the more universal experience of looking in a mirror.