Here a few drawings from the day. Both pen and ink, created
in a Banditapple unruled notebook with a Noodler’s Konrad flex pen and Noodler’s
black ink, as well as Pitt brush pens for the solid blacks.
"Carousel Camel on the Loose" Copyright, Sara Light-Waller
This first drawing shows a Bactrian camel, decked out in
carousel regalia, galloping through the desert. I’ve never drawn a camel before
and thought it might be fun to dress him (or her) up for the occasion.
"Horse and Rider collage" Copyright, Sara Light-Waller
The next piece started out as a simple pen and ink drawing
of a horse and rider, but after some happy accidents in my photo manipulation
program — voila! I now have something much more interesting that looks collaged. I
so love happy accidents!
I find "The Russian Dance" from Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker ballet to be good music for inking.
Whenever I take a break from inking, I forget how to do it.
Well, that’s not exactly true. I don’t forget how to make marks on paper, I forget my inking rhythm. Tonight, I was inking a final piece for the Book I illustrations.
A late addition that I wanted to add as a decoration for one of the title pages. I had already
done the rough inks and started on the final inks for the drawing. But then I got a
few commissions, and then I got a cold, and then it was Thanksgiving, etc. And so several weeks have passed since
I last worked on this piece.
Now that I’m pretty
much all better (coughing plays havoc with inking, as you can well imagine) I wanted to finish this drawing. So I inked up my favorite Noodler's flex pen and put on a CD of
Tchaikovsky's ballet suites. But, I had forgotten how important
music can be for good inking rhythm, especially when you’re a bit rusty as I am right now.
Generally classical music is good choice to ink to, but this was a new CD and I wasn’t familiar with the arrangements.
The CD starts with selections from Swan Lake and this turned out to be a terrible
choice for my inking tonight. I just couldn’t find my rhythm in the music, at all. When the CD entered into the
Nutcracker suite all went better and I suddenly remembered what I was
doing. Everything went along smoothly until the CD went into Sleeping Beauty. This last suite was a bit hit and miss for me once again.
As I look at the final piece now,
nearly completed and sitting on my easel, I’m wondering if I shouldn’t have just put on some Steely
Dan to begin with. It’s a winner for me every time.
