Pen & Ink Exercises – The Wrap-Up

So after many blog posts about the pen & ink marks that I tried out, was it worth it? The short answer is YES! Absolutely.

For those interested, here’s the longer answer.

Most of my formal training in pen & ink was done in graduate school while studying Scientific Illustration. I have always loved the medium of ink, whether for lettering or illustration. In my Illustration training we used stippling and crosshatch almost much exclusively. Out of habit, (and lack of further knowledge) I continued to focus on these two marks for many years. Over time I grew frustrated with their particular limitations as they weren’t right for all subjects. New marks were clearly needed and I’m glad to have added some new ones to my tool kit this year. Bless Claudia Nice and her lovely books, “Creating Textures in Pen & Ink with Watercolor” and "Sketching Your Favorite Subjects in Pen & Ink” for their assistance.

Here’s the summation of the marks I used:

Crosshatching & Stippling – Old friends. I couldn’t get on without either. Stippling is perhaps the “king” of illustration techniques in my book. It can be used for a wide variety of subject matter and, if you’re patient with it, can render some amazingly realistic effects.

Stippling is "king" of ink marks used in Scientific Illustration.

Crosshatching is simply necessary. If you are going to use any mark besides stippling you will most likely find yourself darkening your values at some point with crosshatching.

Contour Lines – Very useful to define curved shapes. Without this mark it would be very difficult (but not impossible with stippling) to get something round-edged to look three-dimensional.

Wavy Lines – A very useful mark for rendering wood grains and rippling patterns. As I mentioned in my entry about wavy lines, I still find this mark a bit confusing. More work will be needed here.

Parallel Lines – Very useful for flat or shiny objects. Has some interesting implications for animals shown at a distance, might also give an old-timey feel to some subject matter.

Criss-Cross Lines – Clearly a big winner for me! I now can render animal fur/hair with ink! Halleluiah! What a relief!

Scribble – A really, fun, loose mark to render (the complete opposite from stippling which is very tightly controlled) and most useful for quick sketches (hello urban sketching!) and the simple rendering of foliage.  Easy and effective? What could be better? On balance, I think that Scribble Lines ended up being my new favorite, although Criss-Cross Lines came in a close second.

For anyone out there interested in learning pen & ink, I highly recommend doing these systematic exercises. It takes some time but is well worth the effort.

The Last Mark - Wavy Lines

Today I finished the last of my pen and ink practice sheets. The mark of the day was “Wavy Lines.” I have used this technique for wood grain before and have quite liked it. Here’s an example from several years ago.

"Sunshine Gourd" pen & ink and watercolor

 

I decided to try using these marks for some other surface today and went searching around the house for a piece of agate to draw. While looking, I stumbled upon this little glass heart, left to me by my mother who passed away last Spring. I knew it would be the perfect subject.

Glass Heart using wavy line ink marks

I think it worked out alright, although this technique, when used for surfaces other than wood, seems to confuse me a little bit. Clearly, more practice is needed. ;-)

Why letters?

Two pages from my lettering journal

Throughout the years I have taken time out to practice lettering. Not calligraphy per se, although I have done that too, but drawing letters. I’m a good copyist and it’s something I really enjoy doing. Like pen & ink, I find drawing letters quite relaxing. I seem to be in another cycle of letter drawing right now. Every day of so, for the past few weeks, I’ve spent a few hours copying letters. It’s a good warm-up for drawing and it’s also fun in its own right.

Initial Capital (copyright Sara Light-Waller 2010)

 

Besides the intrinsic value of knowing how letters are formed, kerned, tracked, etc., drawing them reminds you to pay attention to your writing in a way that many of us forget after years of mindless practice. Good letter forms are actually quite beautiful, an art form in and of themselves. In this day of computerized fonts (and don’t get me wrong, I have THOUSANDS of fonts on my computer all neatly categorized into type categories for easy design access) it’s nice to revisit hand lettering. It adds a touch of class to your day.

Letters Decorated with Ferns

I can't wait to use these fern letters for something!

Back to Pen & Ink Practice

Although I’m not sure I’m completely done with my horse show sketch series, I felt it was time to get back to pen & ink practice today. Scribble lines are another mark that is almost completely new to me. That sounds odd as they are perhaps the most intuitive marks of all! Funny. But in my case, these incredibly useful marks never got the play they clearly deserved.

Pen & Ink Practice ( with Claudia Nice's mark notes)

The scene that I chose to render today is from a photo of a lovely B&B in Victoria, BC called Mulberry Manor. Their back gardens were absolutely lovely, and the tutor style house was also wonderful – inside and out. :-)

Before this piece, I was a bit skeptical about the usefulness of the Derwent Inktense pencils. I hadn’t really found a niche for them in my art kit. I was quite pleased by their performance in this piece and have decided to add them to my traveling sketch bag. I think they’ll make a lovely addition for urban and natural sketching where a touch of bright (but maybe not too subtle) color is needed.

EDM Challenge #287 - Draw Something Colorful

Okay, I just couldn’t resist! I love Appaloosas and this Appy pony at the horse show had the most lovely behind. So here is my challenge…in pen & ink and watercolor. ;-)

I loved this pony from the moment I saw him!

Stone Pony

Today's Pony Sketch

Today I added another Evergreen Classic sketch to my growing pile. For this one I did a little experimenting. I chose a split complementary palette of Buff Titanium, (Primatek) Hematite, (Primatek) Sicklerite Genuine, and Manganese Blue Hue. All were Daniel Smith watercolors. They represented in order: Yellow, Yellow Orange, Red Orange, and the complement – Cyan. All were cool versions of the colors. They were also all granulating colors. I wondered if the granulating colors could be used to simulate the dappling on the original pony’s coat.

To my taste the results were mixed. I liked the layout of the page very much. I also felt the colors I used looked cohesive and harmonious. However, the granulation qualities of all four colors added together ended up being a bit too much. The piece needed some more rest for the eye, which could have been gotten by substituting a least one non-granulating color. I also felt that all the granulation led the pony’s color to look more like stone than dappling. Perhaps in the future I’ll try only one or two granulating colors, not all four! I also missed a warm color in the mix. There should have been some ochre in the pony’s coat color and the Sicklerite Genuine was just too cool.

Having said all that, I was actually pleased with today’s page. I look forward to making some changes to the next sketch to see if I can get a happier color mix like I did in the two ponies page I did yesterday.

Who doesn't like ponies?

Jerry Seinfeld had the right of it..."Who doesn't like ponies?" It's always great fun watching the pony hunters at a horse show. Little kids and adorable ponies, what's not to like? Here's a sketch for the day of two pony hunters and their riders. I love the contrasts between the two.

Two Pony Hunters from the Evergreen Classic