Ink wash and pen
You are to make a number of drawings using your twig pen
from last week (or a new one) that are mainly about light and shadow, but also
experimenting with what the ink can do.
Play with it. Try not to be
governed by “making” the ink do what you want it to but allow the ink to do
what it will, all while being reasonably faithful to what you observe.
Last week the emphasis was on control; controlling the value
of the various forms of each drawing to reasonably replicate what the light and
shadow looks like. This week you are to
push thing a bit further by allowing the ink to have even more control. Experiment with the pen by dipping your twig
pen in not only jet black ink, but dip in into various wash values as
well. You’ll find that dipping it into
light or middle gray will mimic a pencil mark.
Starting with light gray gestural marks allows for the measuring
exploration necessary for properly proportioned forms, and once that sets you
can overpower those early marks with richer darker marks for the more
important, established lines. Filling
the various light and dark shapes with the appropriate values will then make
those early marks virtually non-existent.
While doing this allow the ink to run and bleed in ways to make the
drawing more interesting. As much as
possible, let the medium make the decisions.
The best ink drawings are a negotiation between the artist
and the medium.
The Exercises
You are to make three self portrait drawings from a mirror using only ink wash and
your twig pen. Each should fill a page
of your 18x24 paper, and you must include at least your whole head and
shoulders, with the figure continuing to the edge of the paper. Each drawing should take at least an hour and
a half, and each should look stylistically different than the others. Somewhere
in each drawing should be the jet black of the pure ink, with substantial parts
of the drawing left the white of the paper.
If things don’t work out in a
drawing, be willing to start over!
Good luck!
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