Pen and Ink Sketches

Happy New Year!  I've been doing some ink sketching for practice and confidence.  

The top drawing was done with Higgins Black Magic ink on Arches cold pressed watercolor paper.  I used watercolor paper because I wanted to leave the option open to add color, but Arches cold pressed paper has a great texture for inking.  I don't like it if I want the ink lines to reproduce cleanly though, such as with workbook illustrations.  The texture really breaks up the lines.

For this bottom set of sketches, the girl on the right was drawn with Higgins Black Magic and the others were done with Higgins Eternal ink.  For the black solid, I grabbed my Pentel Pocket Brush Pen.  The paper was Canson XL which I like for ink drawing because it has a soft texture and takes both ink lines and watercolor well. It's affordable too.

Illustration Friday: "Vacation"

I'm so late on this that there was no time for ink to dry before painting on it!  So I shaded it with lines instead.  This was drawn with 0 and 00 brushes and Speedball Super Black ink, which is easy to find and I think makes nice lines.

Illustration Friday: "Hybrid"

Fog

                                          The fog comes

                                          on little cat feet.

                                          It sits looking

                                          over harbor and city

                                          on silent haunches

                                          and then moves on.

                                                                    -Carl Sandburg  

Illustration Friday: "Travel"

Drawn with brown ink on Arches cold-pressed watercolor paper.

Illustration Friday: "Tension"

I wish I could spin some meaning into this, but in reality it was just about procrastinating, doing a fast sketch for fun and drawing thick lines with my brush pen!  It felt great.  When I realized it would work for Illustration Friday, it was a nice little bonus!

Illustration Friday: "Egg"

A Few Doodles

Hi everyone!  I've been busy with life things and haven't been working on anything I thought was worth posting, but I have been doing little drawings in my sketchbook.  I wanted to check in here and say "hello", so I'll go ahead and post a few sketches.  These are all drawn quickly in ballpoint. I'm liking ballpoint more and more!  No smudging, no sharpening, no stopping to dip a pen!

Illustration Friday: "Eye Glasses"

It seemed to me to be time to draw a duck!  To fit this week's theme, I had to give him some glasses.  But I think I forgot to tell him what to do with them!  This guy is a "tiny", what I affectionately call my 2.5" x 3.5" art cards, in ink and colored pencil.

More Ballpoint Sketches

Here's an idea (or two) I was working on yesterday in my sketchbook. The sun was there first but got overrun by the bigger drawing!  These are drawn with black ballpoint pen and I think if I do a finished version I'll stick to ballpoint.  I love it.

Illustration Friday: "Talent"

Betsy Ross, 2.5"x3.5", ink with watercolor

Betsy Ross was a talented artisan and businesswoman.  A trained upholsterer, she maintained a successful upholstery business throughout her life.  One interesting place to learn about Betsy online is at the Betsy Ross House website here.

Illustration Friday: "Whisper" (With Process)

Mother Nature whispered, "It will be all right, little one."

I really wanted to do an optimistic sort of illustration this week.  This is a crow quill drawing on Canson bristol board.  The piece went through several sketches and line work practice studies, so I saved my scans and stages as I went along for a long-overdue process post.

Thumbnail sketch, approx. 2"x3"

Traced and revised from enlargement of thumbnail

Revisions in Photoshop

Digital line study over final sketch

Further work on the digital line study

Trying out a border

Final illustration

A Portrait of Shoes

My Mizunos

Shoes have so much life in them after we've worn them around for a while, don't they?  These are my old Mizuno running shoes.  They are old but not worn out, and very bored from lack of use lately.  I needed to do some trials and work on style anyway, so I made this shoe portrait in hopes that I might get inspired to lace them up and get out of my house!

I used ink and watercolor on Strathmore 400 series watercolor paper.

House Red With Mermaid

While I was waking up one day last week I imagined an image of a tiny mermaid, bored in a glass of wine.  It seemed like it could be kind of fun to draw, so instead of forgetting about it as I usually do with that kind of thing, I made this illustration.  I like it!  It's a little weird, but so what.  It could happen, right?

It's a crow quill pen and ink drawing on Strathmore Mixed Media paper/board.  I find that board takes ink very nicely.  Colored pencil looks good on it too, as does watercolor.  I wouldn't use it to do a watercolor painting or anything where the watercolor should be the focus.  But it works great for coloring an ink drawing with watercolor, where I want the ink drawing to be the focus!  It even allows me to rework a watercolor area a little bit without it looking "scrubby".  One bad thing about it is that it's too thick for me to trace a sketch onto it using a light table.  I have to trace with a transfer paper.  All in all it's a really nice, useful, great-looking paper.  Give it a try sometime!

"House Red With Mermaid" is available in my Society6 shop.

Illustration Friday: "Wings"

My art tools this week were black Sharpie pen and low-bleed paper.  I used Photoshop to clean things up a little and add/change the color.  I confess that I've been following my own advice, as illustrated above, WAY too much lately!

This art is available as an art print, pillow, t-shirt and more in my shop here.

Illustration Friday: "Ocean"

This week gave me a chance to draw from Greek mythology, which I love to do!  Here's Poseidon, Greek god of the sea, riding on a charging hippocamp.  The original drawing was pen and ink on smooth paper.  I was experimenting with different line weights to create different tones without using crosshatching.  Then I colorized it and added the background in Photoshop.

"Poseidon" is available as an art print and more in my shop here.

Illustration Friday: "Glow"

For this illustration my idea was to show a little something...without really showing anything!  It's done in pen and ink and is small, ACEO size 2.5" x 3.5".  I've been thinking a lot about ACEOs lately and I'm very interested in doing a collection of them to sell.  This is the first time I've drawn directly on a trimmed card-sized paper.  Usually I've drawn on a larger size and cut it down.  This worked just as well I think but I might feel differently when I try one right to the edges with color!

Illustration Friday: "Snow"

Illustration Friday: "Explore"

There's no need to rough it in order to explore!

I love Valentino's haute couture.  Click here to see the dress I chose to draw.  I used Pentel brush pen and watercolor on Arches watercolor paper.

Heart to Heart

I used to draw angels all the time when I was young because drawing the wings was so much fun.  I don't know why I stopped....I guess perhaps I've been drawing wings on birds instead.  But I also love drawing

fairies!  So these little angelfairies are a bit of both.  Plus they have great hair!  I call this illustration "Heart to Heart".  It's ink and watercolor.

"Heart to Heart" is available as a print and more in my shop here.

Illustration Friday: "Whiskers"

I've been working on this just for fun over the last few days and was excited to see it would work for Illustration Friday's prompt this week!  It's dedicated to all those, including me, who are trying to get a little exercise over the holiday season.  Good luck to us all!! 

Available as an art print, cards, t-shirts and more here.