Even More Inktober

A few more Inktober works to finish off the month. The first is a crab fishing boat being tossed by swells. The second is a view of dense, old-growth forest.

These two inks, unlike earlier Inktober works, were done with a crow quill (dip) pen and dark, blue-black ink on toned paper. The fun of a flexible nib like a crow quill is the variety of lines you can make. They can be thin, thick tapering, wide and dark, and a lot more. But dip pen drawing takes a lot of practice and a steady hand.

Vista

A vista of Whiterock Conservancy, where I am currently Artist in Residence.

More Inktober Drawings

The discipline of drawing with pen and ink every day is good--any activity that builds a habit of "making" promotes advancing skill and allows testing of pens, ink and methods. These two are both done with technical pen, but I still plan on doing some old fashioned dip pen drawings.

Painting Small

Years ago a teacher told me that many of his works, which were primarily for illustrating book covers and advertising, were done in quite small sizes--as small as 6x8 inches--before being photographed and used in larger formats. For a long time that approach didn't make sense to me, painting small and showing large, but it began to make sense as I did a quantity of small oil sketches. 

"Mountain Sketch," oil on panel, 6x8

Looking at the sketch above you might think it's a fairly large work, but it's only 6x8. There appear to me myriad details in the trees, particularly the two large spruces, but those marks are actually quite tiny. The distant mountain were painted very thinly and then mostly wiped off. The whole thing looks as it it could be at least medium-sized, say 12x16 or larger.

Return to Whiterock

This week I return to Whiterock Conservancy, where I spent a few weeks last year. This time the weather will be more crisp and there ought to be fall colors in the grasses and trees. During my stay these next couple of weeks my main goal will be to work outdoors as much as possible. Winter is over the horizon, after all. 

"Whiterock Bluff," oil on panel, 9x12

This is a view of the bluff that is the namesake of the conservancy, along the Middle Raccoon River.

More Inktober

So far this month of Inktober I've manage to keep up with the daily regimen of pen and ink drawings. Given an established habit of drawing most every day it's been reasonably simple to keep up by just substituting digital drawing time for time with a pen and paper.

The first is a nod to the fall season and the coming holiday of Halloween when images of spiders will be literally nearly everywhere. The interesting thing about spiders (and other animals with exoskeletons) is how other-worldly they seem and how logically their bodies and legs seem to fit together.

This second drawing was an interesting exercise in shading with random scribbles to establish values and render shapes. Although this one isn't entirely successful it was fun.

Welcome to Inktober

Several years ago after hearing about Inktober, a worldwide October event to promote pen and ink drawing, I decided to give it a whirl. The idea, which originated nearly 15 years ago, was to provide a daily structure to hone skills with a pen. The originator, a fellow named Jake Parker, told others who told others, and so on. The first plan was to make and post an ink drawing online every day. On the website linked above, you can find a list of prompts for a daily drawing, but participants often use their own subject material. And some now participate by doing a drawing a week for an entire year. Regardless of schedule, the idea is to form a regular habit of drawing with ink. 

My own art practice has included pen and ink drawing since I began, but not as a primary medium. Instead ink drawing for me is a way to train the eye and hand. Drawing with liquid ink is demanding because ink stays wet, for one thing. And inked work can't be erased, of course. The limitations of drawing with an old-fashioned metal nib are also forbidding. Metal nibs can leak, release ink in blobs, bend out of shape, and more and so are often avoided these days. Technical pens are more favored, but unlike dip pens, tech pens don't permit much variation in line weight. Most I use technical pens in various sizes but occasionally I'll fall back on an old crow quill, a kind of metal nib that's been in use for at least two centuries. 

So I'm giving this Inktober another go. Here are the first two. Each is on the same tan paper, though the colors are different in these photos. The first is an ink drawing after a marble Roman portrait bust dating to about 100 CE. The second is a landscape of a mountain path, from an online reference. In each case I made an initial pencil drawing using relatively hard graphite, then completed an ink drawing using technical pen. I like Pigma Micron pens for their opacity and archival qualities.). Later this month I'm going to try some dip pen works.

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Previous Inktober posts:

Inktober Plan

Another Shot of Ink(tober)

More Inktober

Halfway Through Inktober

An Inktober Update

In the Garden

This new oil painting is a view of one of the corners in the Better Homes test garden that I've written about before not long ago  This particular spot is a place in the garden that gets many hours of sun. There is a small lawn surrounded by plantings, mature trees in the far (southeast) corner, and a small rock-walled water feature in the foreground. A number of the watercolor sketches posted earlier here were studies for later studio works like this one.

"In the Garden,"oil on panel. private collection

This work was a private gift commission this summer.