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Alistair @funkyalchemist.bsky.social · 5h

Incredibly niche euphemism

Alistair @funkyalchemist.bsky.social · 11h

Thank you again Isobel for another lovely Paints & Pints session at The Wineport, Cladach. Great and varied portraits from everyone!

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Alistair @funkyalchemist.bsky.social · 1d

Really nicely done

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Alistair @funkyalchemist.bsky.social · 1d

“Arctic” for inktober’s prompt of the day - I thought I’d try and do something semi abstract based on the edge of sea ice #inktober #inktober2025 (p.s. cobalt blue Indian ink, black Quink fountain pen ink and Chinese White watercolour)

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Alistair @funkyalchemist.bsky.social · 2d

I flung some more blue ink around

Ted Lasso character drawn in black and blue ink

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Alistair @funkyalchemist.bsky.social · 2d

Thank you! You can find the “official” prompts at inktober.com/rules and there a lot more people using the tags on instagram if you want to see how other folks respond to them

Rules & Prompts — Inktober

inktober.com

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Alistair @funkyalchemist.bsky.social · 2d

For inktober’s prompt today of “Deal” I thought about deal, or pine, furniture and the platonic idea of a table. I worked through the process in an odd-orange stationery blogpost (oddorange.co.uk/blogs/news/b...) of drawing, tracing it, then repeatedly drawing from memory #inktober #inktober2025

5 repeated line drawings in orange ink of a plain deal table

A photograph of a pine table (ex Habitat) on a white background

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Alistair @funkyalchemist.bsky.social · 3d

New insult just dropped

Quite Interesting @qi.com · 3d

The vertebrate with the smallest brain-to-body weight ratio is the bony-eared assfish.

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Alistair @funkyalchemist.bsky.social · 3d

inktober prompt 17 “ornate” - Unipin 0.2mm fineliner #inktober #inktober2025

Fine and very simple black pen line drawing of Ted from Ted Lasso TV series with an arrow, him and a question mark

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Alistair @funkyalchemist.bsky.social · 4d

We’ve seen this before - the Goths sack Washington and in a few hundred years a definitive multi volume work “The decline and fall of the American Empire” gets written

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Alistair @funkyalchemist.bsky.social · 4d

Day 16 of Inktober “blunder” - Fine Unipin pens (& the non deliberate metablunder included is my decision to use fine pens for filling in a large expanse of black) #inktober #inktober2025

A black pen drawing of an ink bottle sitting on its side in the middle of a pool of black ink

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Reposted by Alistair

John Harris @johnharris1969.bsky.social · 4d

Quite the spectacle to see media outlets who've cheered on austerity saying 'oh god, SEND spending is out of control'. Well, if you gut councils, fail to provide local special school spaces, collapse SureStart and leave public/collective transport to rot, that's what happens. Cuts are expensive

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Alistair @funkyalchemist.bsky.social · 4d

Portrait of a woman in red/blue coloured pencil on white paper

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Alistair @funkyalchemist.bsky.social · 4d

15min a time - Draw Each Other portraits over zoom. Thank you to our sitters and hosts (Koh-i-noor multicolour magic pencil)

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Alistair @funkyalchemist.bsky.social · 4d

While weeding I found one of my allies in the battle against slugs

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Reposted by Alistair

The New Yorker @newyorker.com · 6d

The neurologist Oliver Sacks found that the social-media era resembles a neurological catastrophe on a gigantic scale.

The Machine Stops

The neurologist Oliver Sacks on steam engines, smartphones, and fearing the future.

www.newyorker.com

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Alistair @funkyalchemist.bsky.social · 5d

p.s. his social commentary from early in the last century of a self defeating working class, predatory capitalism, mealy mouthed religion and corrupt officialdom which must seem strange and quaint and anchronistic to the modern reader living in more enlightened times

Alistair @funkyalchemist.bsky.social · 5d

“Ragged” was the prompt for @inktober today so - a drawing in fine pen and wash of Robert Noonan author of The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists (as Robert Tressell) #inktober #inktober2025

An ink pen and wash drawing of an Edwardian man sitting on a wooden fence

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Alistair @funkyalchemist.bsky.social · 5d

Finally we get to hear of the other side of the Hansel and Gretel story

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Alistair @funkyalchemist.bsky.social · 5d

Drawing a person as a portrait or figure it is like the opposite of a voodoo doll. You all of the care, attention, hope and love you can find in yourself and cram as much as you possibly can fit of it into a little icon of the sitter. It is the most brilliant, positive magic I can think of

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Alistair @funkyalchemist.bsky.social · 6d

Day 14 of Inktober “trunk” - “The Surgeon’s Sketch” what was initially thought to be incontrovertible proof of the existence not just the Loch Ness Monster but a pair of them was later found to be simply a pair of swimming trunks #inktober #inktober2025

Based on the famous “Surgeon’s Photograph” purporting to be the head and neck of the Loch Ness monster. A drawing in black pen of two elephant trunks and the almost entirely submerged heads with the tops just visible. They are swimming from left to right

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Alistair @funkyalchemist.bsky.social · 6d

Is that a trunk road?

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Alistair @funkyalchemist.bsky.social · 7d

“Self portrait with a mug” for inktober prompt 13 “drink” (0.5 and 0.8mm Mitsubishi unipin fine pens) #inktober #inktober2025

A teapot drawn in black pen on white paper. In the reflections you can just about see a person sitting with one leg crossed over the other and a mug sitting on a tabletop

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Alistair @funkyalchemist.bsky.social · 8d

p.s. I’m not sure why but I decided that this should be drawn with my non-dominant (left) hand so that the neurons were all having to do the work without reliance on muscle memory and fine control

Alistair @funkyalchemist.bsky.social · 8d

inktober “shredded” - a drawing in Indian ink of a cross section of human nerve fibres and sheath #inktober #inktober2025

A pile of pink, purple and white paper fragments from a shredder. A reconfigured drawing

Semi abstract drawing of a microscope image of a cross section of human nerve fibre - purple splodges in a grainy field of pink

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