This year, I focused on the words. My spring explorations of folded cards pulled me away from the 5 Word Poems and the summer detour into the ruling pen (which loves big) didn’t help with the resuscitating the 5WP format.
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inkTober ’25
This was done with a dryish brush with old clumpy ink. It made for a great texture on the page, but left a few spot marks on the scanner cause I rushed to get them into the box.
I cheated slightly, pulling the “ink” to overlap the “Tober”. Even though I try to avoid over processing, I’m not above digital. These compilation posts are my confessional booth.
I’ve been playing a lot with Gothicized Italics, so it naturally became a big part of this year’s scripts. This was my last assigment for Inktober since it was more important to complete the daily pieces first.
Last year I tried to make each piece on the morning of the challenge. That’s hard! This year, I finished everything in September while convalescing from the that liver infection. So now I’m posting leisurely and enjoying what others are sharing.
So really, my true #inktober is copying flourishes from Arthur Baker’s sample books.
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Mustache
This was made with a ruling pen, dipped in a grey wash of saved water after cleaning my tools.
I’m really happy with this piece, a strong start to the month. I wasn’t as happy with all thirty-one pieces, but that’s life.
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weave
Confession: I digitally swapped the final period from bronze to blue.
This piece is a direct variant of my August experiments with overlapping Gothicized Italics in a notebook.
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This crown was slighted tilted, but the crossed O felt like a gem.
This crown is well balanced and I prefer the curved n as a mirror to the C.
crOwn
The red and blue design was a second series after scanning in the initial set. Even so, I’m still not happy with the final piece—calligraphy is an ocean of practice poured into a single moment, that might not go your way. If this was my profession, I’d be obligated to hit perfection, but as a hobby, I can settle.
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murky
This was made with a Dreaming Dogs Layla ruling pen, which has a slight curve. Videos show that you can make a very wide line, but since I was using the thin grey wash, this is about as wide as I can get.
I love split line effect when you go really fast with this pen.
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deer
I had a brutal time with this one. I tried to capture the leap of the Deer using cursive, but was unhappy while scanning it. So I tried making a logo. Again unhappy. Finally found something by starting with a lowercase “d”.
Fortunately the paper is thick enough to reuse the back of the sheets. Even after failing both sides, they become the background for experiments before attempting finished pieces.
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pierce
Unlike deer, I had a concept that executed beautifully. There were several pieces that were presentable, but this one stood out with the bleeding red.
Even then, I’m still a tad dissatisfied with the piece. The piercing action would have been more pronounced if I stopped it inside the opening of the “p”.
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Starfish
One of my mantras is “when in doubt, add noise”. The ruling pen gave a little splatter, but it had more promise by using the back of a practice sheet. Right before posting this piece, I utilized a new mantra “try inverting”. I don’t love this digital crutch, but it works too often to ignore.
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That first week in October just flew by. While I’m certain my body is still quietly recovering from my liver infection, the most noticeable thing is catching up at work. Being semi-chastened with that medical scare, I’m now much better at letting things slide into tomorrow.
There’s always more work.
Cya next time!
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PS—Dominion
My daughter and I have been playing Dominion a lot.
Even at seven, she reads darn fast. Enough to play a game with lots of text.
My wife hates wordy card games, but the girl has a lot of fun because she enjoys buying stuff.
For a while we played without attack cards, but she’s warmed up to the inclusion of such cards when I promised I wouldn’t purchase those cards.
She also prohibits deck thinning cards. She senses the power of this strategy but has no interest in trashing old purchases.
The original 2008 base game is better for playing with a child than the revised version. The new deck manipulation cards are fine for lifestyle gamers, but sometimes simplicity is better.
Either way you can’t go wrong. Dominion is an amazing game. It’s too bad I didn’t realize it when I was gaming every Friday night.
Then again, it’s damn cool to explore it with my own kids. That’s a trade I’d gladly make, eight days a week.
—August 2021
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PPS—Dominion Prosperity
Top tier awesomeness is hearing your daughter claim Dominion as her favorite game when introducing herself to the 2nd grade class.
Admittedly, we’re not playing competitively. She’ll take credit if she’s winning, but if she’s losing then we’re on a team while her stuffies take the fall.
But no matter, she enjoys playing.
The strategy is simple. Spend all game buying stuff that lets you buy more stuff. A nice intuitive mechanic—even the 3-year old has taken to directing us to “buy” this or that.
She still won’t let me play the attack cards, but I’m just happy to be able to watch them in action.
If you like money and buying stuff, Dominion Prosperity is a great addition to the base game. Based on this article by Donald X. Vaccarino, I suspect I’ll be buying Empires for Christmas.
Is there a better endorsement than continued patronage?
—September 2021
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PPPS—Dominion Empires
Unlike his sister, the boy grew up with an older sibling who gives no quarter.
So unless it’s Snorta, he only plays cooperative games. As such, Dominion Empires has not gotten much play.
Two summers ago, I found a cooperative variant. He had fun a couple times as I basically played for both of us. Last week, we watched My Neighbors the Yamadas with subtitles so I realized that he can read at the level to play the game proficiently.
It worked OK, they enjoyed the time. But she still doesn’t fully enjoy the cooperative version and he still has no interest in playing Dominion competitively.
—October 2025
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PPPPS—Practice
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