Sketchbook – 2010 Ink Class
This is a back-dated post for my archive project, where I am copying over every piece of art I have ever submitted to DeviantArt, with the original submission date or watermarked year stamp, so a complete archive of my work can be found on this website, even if the item was never or is no longer displayed in my portfolios.
Originally many separate posts, made between September 2 and November 3, 2010.
September 2, 2010
Felt tip pen in my sketchbook
8″x5.5″
~.5 hour of work
The tree is loosely based on one of the landscaping trees outside the classroom. Everything else came out of my head. The teacher was giving a demo on how to use a mat cutter, something I already own, so I was bored…
Felt tip pen in my sketchbook
8″x5.5″
~.5 hour of work
Drawn during the mat cutting demo in my class. I started with the trees in the back left corner and kept adding details as I moved right across the page. There was no compositional plan in mind when I started.
Felt tip pen in my sketchbook
6″x4.5″
~1 hour of work
This is a drawing of one of my shoes. Done in class at the teacher’s prompting.
Croquille dip pen in ink
9″x6″
~2 hours of work
In-class exercise. One of the other students brought in her nephew’s building blocks and arranged them on a table in the middle of the room. The instructor set up a lamp so the blocks would have dramatic lighting, and we were free to draw whichever of the blocks we wanted. Most of the blocks in this drawing were not actually placed in the relationships shown, but when I finished the ones I had initially sketched I just added in more where I could on the paper.
If you look close at the individual lines, you can see the bane of my artistic existence in action. In various areas of the drawing the lines have a quiver to them. Most of what looks like paper bleed is not. It’s my hand trembling slightly.
October 1, 2010
Felt tip pen on Vellum paper
11″x14″
~3 hours of work
Class assignment. The instructor was not even remotely clear about what she was looking for, and what little she did say included “don’t shade it” and “no crossed lines”, so I thought what she wanted was a straight-up contour image rather than a finished, nice piece of art. I only found out upon turning this in that I could indeed have shaded it and given it context. In fact, she commented on the back that it needed context.
I suppose I could add more detail to it, but beh… I’m not doing anything else with it.
For those learning how to draw, this kind of a contour drawing is a great exercise for learning how to conceptualize a 3-D shape on a 2-D ground. It really makes you think about how all parts of an object are shaped, which can help a lot with foreshortening, shading, and perspective.
Various pens, in about 15 minutes. 5″x7″
No reference.
Ball point pen on Vellum paper
11″x14″
Drawn from a real pillow in class
Class crosshatching exercise. I used the ball point pen because I knew it wouldn’t bleed into the vellum paper, but it left ball-point pen schmutz all over the page. The scratchy background didn’t work as well on paper as it did in my head.
October 29, 2010
12″x14″ sumi ink on vellum paper
I was playing around with sumi ink, and painted an imaginary tree.
Perspective fail….
I like how the tree turned out, and the ground cover beneath it.
9″x12″ sumi ink on watercolor paper
brush and bamboo pen
Class exercise in using washes. Most of it is drawn from the back part of my apartment complex, but I got rid of the buildings and added a path. I think it was moderately successful, or at least I learned a bit from the exercise. Washes are harder for me than I expected them to be.
12″x14″ sumi ink on vellum paper
Bamboo pen and brush
More playing with washes. Since sumi is water soluble, I was hoping to draw ink out of the bold lines to shade, without dipping the brush in anything other than water. It didn’t work very well. I’ve been told it works great while the ink is still wet….
November 3, 2010
~8″ wide, Bombay brown ink on watercolor paper
~3 hours of work
Drawn after A Bend in the Amstel at Kostverloren, by Rembrandt van Rijn
This image is not my creation. It was drawn freehand by myself in imitation of the work by Rembrandt, as an exercise to learn technique in nib in drawing and washes.
I drew the image first in light pencil, after dividing the drawing into four quarters to help with proportions. I did not grid out the entire drawing, although that would have resulted in more accurate proportions. I hate gridding.
For the strong drawing areas I used a Speedball nib dipped in Bombay brown ink, full strength. After I finished that part, I erased the pencil.
The wash is what I learned the most from. I’ve been having a hard time with washes, and this was my most successful use of the technique so far. I think I’m finally starting to get the hang of it.
I used a round watercolor brush. I have a watercolor mixing tray, and filled one depression with water and the other with brown ink. I started by trying to mix the water and the ink in the tray, but by the end I was dipping in the water or ink (depending upon whether I wanted lighter or darker application from the prior stroke) and worked directly on the paper.