ink doodles: the animals and tableaus (post 1 of 2)
There will be another post tomorrow with the more symbol-like ink doodles.
These were done with India ink of various dilutions on crappy discount watercolor paper. The paper is a little smaller than I used to work with, and I was painting on my desk instead of the floor (which means my range of motion is limited) so I didn't end up with any ~~finished pieces. These are all doodles, culled from the morass of other doodles using photoshop.
Although I mostly ended up with 2-3 inch symbols wedged int hegaps between other, larger failed strokes, there were a few more representational moments:
THIS IS A DUCK! He looks rather spry, if I say so myself.
This is... this is pretty crappy. Quickly, scroll past! And remember, I was watching The Chronicles of Riddick at the time. Surely the overwrought Gothic sensiblity can be blamed on Vin Diesel.
I have an entire page covered with skeleton hands, but they were mostly not awesome. Here's the best ones:
The texture of this one is crayon-y because I scribbled with a pastel pencil first, then inked over it.
Here, I did one dilute layer, let it dry, then did another darker later over it.
This is stupid looking. I don't know why I included it. Gawd, the photo isn't even in focus. :/
The gradation here is done via a nifty technique that I used A LOT on the rest of these pages. It's sort of difficult to explain, so let me know if it needs to be clarified: I started with dry paper, and laid down a thin, beaded stream of dulite ink. That is, the water remained beaded, not flat and not soaked into the paper. Then I loaded up the brush with dark ink, and "dipped" it into the beaded stream. The dark ink diffused from the point of contact.
I used the same technique here-- you can see that one point of contact with the dark ink is at the wrist. Then I squeezed the water from my brush and used it to suck up the beaded water. That's what causes the darker edges, which are especially visible on the middle knuckle. You'll see much better examples of the technique tomorrow, when I post the symbols.
Here's some peoples!
It seems like the laboratory experiment is falling to its death, the poor bastard.
Mayhap this jaunty lady will help him out!
Nope. I think she's on her way to an appointment with this languid fellow.
This is a basic scribble--full strength ink on dry paper. It's pretty obvious I'm using a calligraphy brush, eh? Alas, I am not fancy enoguh to be using one actually made out of bamboo. :/
I must have wet the paper with clean water before dripping the ink on. The break in the middle is from pastel pencil again-- it actually takes the color of the ink better than I expected it to.
The paper must have been very wet here, and I drew the brush across it slowly, so plenty of the ink could "bloom" out. If I had done it faster, the line would be much more thin.
Here, I put down just a stroke of clear water (the blurry parts), then painted beyond it (the sharp spoke-bits.)
I did the same thing here, but I think I let it dry a bit before adding more details. You only get sharp lines like that when the paper's dry.
At some point, I thought I might do better if I measured out smaller sections to work with-- margins being an advantage, less space to mess up in being another. It worked a little bit? Here's that page in its entirety:
(I didn't clean it up as much as I did the others-- I liked the dim look.)
Here's the individual bits:
This was done mostly dry, I think. It looks like nothing. OH WELL.
I think I see a fish! I like the gaps here.
Oh nuuuuuuuuu the Narada is coming to get us!
Oh wait, that's just some seaweed. Never mind. ^_^
ETA:
I FORGOT MY GENIE! D:
TUNE IN TOMORROW for the next installment: Ink Doodles, The Symbols.
These were done with India ink of various dilutions on crappy discount watercolor paper. The paper is a little smaller than I used to work with, and I was painting on my desk instead of the floor (which means my range of motion is limited) so I didn't end up with any ~~finished pieces. These are all doodles, culled from the morass of other doodles using photoshop.
Although I mostly ended up with 2-3 inch symbols wedged int hegaps between other, larger failed strokes, there were a few more representational moments:
THIS IS A DUCK! He looks rather spry, if I say so myself.
This is... this is pretty crappy. Quickly, scroll past! And remember, I was watching The Chronicles of Riddick at the time. Surely the overwrought Gothic sensiblity can be blamed on Vin Diesel.
I have an entire page covered with skeleton hands, but they were mostly not awesome. Here's the best ones:
The texture of this one is crayon-y because I scribbled with a pastel pencil first, then inked over it.
Here, I did one dilute layer, let it dry, then did another darker later over it.
This is stupid looking. I don't know why I included it. Gawd, the photo isn't even in focus. :/
The gradation here is done via a nifty technique that I used A LOT on the rest of these pages. It's sort of difficult to explain, so let me know if it needs to be clarified: I started with dry paper, and laid down a thin, beaded stream of dulite ink. That is, the water remained beaded, not flat and not soaked into the paper. Then I loaded up the brush with dark ink, and "dipped" it into the beaded stream. The dark ink diffused from the point of contact.
I used the same technique here-- you can see that one point of contact with the dark ink is at the wrist. Then I squeezed the water from my brush and used it to suck up the beaded water. That's what causes the darker edges, which are especially visible on the middle knuckle. You'll see much better examples of the technique tomorrow, when I post the symbols.
Here's some peoples!
It seems like the laboratory experiment is falling to its death, the poor bastard.
Mayhap this jaunty lady will help him out!
Nope. I think she's on her way to an appointment with this languid fellow.
This is a basic scribble--full strength ink on dry paper. It's pretty obvious I'm using a calligraphy brush, eh? Alas, I am not fancy enoguh to be using one actually made out of bamboo. :/
I must have wet the paper with clean water before dripping the ink on. The break in the middle is from pastel pencil again-- it actually takes the color of the ink better than I expected it to.
The paper must have been very wet here, and I drew the brush across it slowly, so plenty of the ink could "bloom" out. If I had done it faster, the line would be much more thin.
Here, I put down just a stroke of clear water (the blurry parts), then painted beyond it (the sharp spoke-bits.)
I did the same thing here, but I think I let it dry a bit before adding more details. You only get sharp lines like that when the paper's dry.
At some point, I thought I might do better if I measured out smaller sections to work with-- margins being an advantage, less space to mess up in being another. It worked a little bit? Here's that page in its entirety:
(I didn't clean it up as much as I did the others-- I liked the dim look.)
Here's the individual bits:
This was done mostly dry, I think. It looks like nothing. OH WELL.
I think I see a fish! I like the gaps here.
Oh nuuuuuuuuu the Narada is coming to get us!
Oh wait, that's just some seaweed. Never mind. ^_^
ETA:
I FORGOT MY GENIE! D:
TUNE IN TOMORROW for the next installment: Ink Doodles, The Symbols.