INKtober 2026 - Flimsy

The problem with prompts is that I often don’t know what to do with the word. I jungle and use some tricks to implement them into my text. It may be that I never use many of those words in English. And then there’s also the fact that a word can have multiple meanings. If I am not in the story telling mood or lack time, what I do is not something to be proud of.

Flimsy isn’t the same as fragile or easily breakable like glass, but it can apply in certain circumstances, for example when the quality is brittle or poor. I was thinking of those old mannequins, most of which are missing part or all of their nose. Is it down to the material these vintage dolls are made of, or was the quality simply poorer, even though there are some incredibly heavy ones amongst them?

This time I decided to go for something a bit more light-hearted. Just a bit of fun where ‘flimsy’ comes to the fore. I didn’t want to write the word underneath and left it the way it is.

Let’s hope the elephant, doing the acrobatic earnestly, doesn’t fall on the ringmaster and crush him.

To be honest, this drawing took me considerably less time than those cubes, in Toss the Dice](https://steemit.com/artonsteemit/@wakeupkitty/inktober-2026-toss-the-dice), I tried thought were a great idea for yesterday's prompt "toss". They took me two days practising and still 👎. Next I forgot to post.

The Process

I certainly didn’t spend anywhere near four hours on today's drawing, and... Surprise, surprise I found drawing the pencil (cubes, cubes, cubes?) more difficult than the elephant, which I built up using circles and ovals.

I actually wanted to draw the headmaster with less detail, but with the fineliner I found, he was finished in no time. I noticed that I tended to scribble rather than draw neat lines, so that’s something I need to work on. I want to finish quickly and I’m not very patient when it comes to drawing smooth, neat lines. Also, the hand I use to draw regularly got in the way. This means I can’t see what I’m doing. So here and there I’ve had to cover up a few wrong lines.

And yes, it’s true that I work with a blunt pencil and that lines are often already smudged out because I run my hand over them. I’m happy with this drawing though. I’ll leave it in the ugly sketchbook. I used this paper on both sides.

Materials:

• sketchbook - bamboo paper
• pencil HB
• fineliner - joie de vivre - black

_{13.10.26
INKtober prompt: flimsy
#artonsteemit #inktober #drawing #art #inktober26 #creative #steemexclusive}