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I had a nice Christmas today, just hanging out with my whole family and eating far more eggs benedict than was either wise or necessary. Present-wise I got a scarf which was so wonderfully soft I spent all day wearing it, and two sketchbooks, which I immediately inaugurated by putting some drawings in them.
Please ignore both the sepia and the ominous shadow of my hand.
This is another one I plan on finishing,( just like I still plan on finishing the evil caterpie I posted a while back, which is still being worked on, I swear), though considering this is being done in sumi-e ink, which is the most ungodly permanent thing known to mankind. I will either finish this, or destroy it, no take-backsies.
Weirdly, this is more calming than stressful for me. When it comes to art, both written and visual, the thing that really kills me isn't the making, it's the tendency to get caught in an endless loop of revising and re-working until I get sick of looking at it and move on to something else. Turning the question into a binary - "Is this too broken to progress or is it not?" Prevents me from going completely nuts.
The materials I use are also the reason my undersketches are so stupidly detailed. While there is no question in my mind not all artists need to do this, I really prefer knowing where I'm going before I start slinging my ultra-black ink all over my work.
Thinking of sumi-e, I had genuinely not realized how thick that stuff was until I purchased fountain pen ink and started using it with my dip pens and brushes. What do you mean it just flows out? I thought turning your nibs upside down and watching your ink defy gravity was a totally normal user experience. I'm beginning to think not trying more than one thing before deciding the pine soot substance was the one true ink for me was not the best idea????
I can fix this tendency to thicken with my inkstone and a stick, as it gives me immense control over the water-to-ink ratio (the work above is being done with ground ink, in fact), but you're still dealing with something that's more of a paint than anything. It actually does have about the same consistency as watercolor when I have my ratios right.
One of the many things I keep telling myself is I should really start using my brushes as brushes instead of the world's softest nib, but when I can get it to work without busting up my hand or accidentally blotting my paper, it looks so good. The sheer dynamism of line thickness is absolutely unmatched, and the pressure can change from hair-fine to thick with the tiniest twitch of the hand.
Unfortunately, the pressure can change from hair fine to rail thick with the tiniest twitch of the hand. Believe it or not, all the ink on this bat took about an hour for me, mostly because I had to move very carefully to make sure I kept the lines looking dynamic instead of sloppy.
For the background, I'm sort of wondering if I want it to be hard black too, or if I want to paint it in a grey tone so that my bats stand out without getting lost in the details of the background.
I think I'll have to sleep on it before I decide.
Please ignore both the sepia and the ominous shadow of my hand.
This is another one I plan on finishing,( just like I still plan on finishing the evil caterpie I posted a while back, which is still being worked on, I swear), though considering this is being done in sumi-e ink, which is the most ungodly permanent thing known to mankind. I will either finish this, or destroy it, no take-backsies.
Weirdly, this is more calming than stressful for me. When it comes to art, both written and visual, the thing that really kills me isn't the making, it's the tendency to get caught in an endless loop of revising and re-working until I get sick of looking at it and move on to something else. Turning the question into a binary - "Is this too broken to progress or is it not?" Prevents me from going completely nuts.
The materials I use are also the reason my undersketches are so stupidly detailed. While there is no question in my mind not all artists need to do this, I really prefer knowing where I'm going before I start slinging my ultra-black ink all over my work.
Thinking of sumi-e, I had genuinely not realized how thick that stuff was until I purchased fountain pen ink and started using it with my dip pens and brushes. What do you mean it just flows out? I thought turning your nibs upside down and watching your ink defy gravity was a totally normal user experience. I'm beginning to think not trying more than one thing before deciding the pine soot substance was the one true ink for me was not the best idea????
I can fix this tendency to thicken with my inkstone and a stick, as it gives me immense control over the water-to-ink ratio (the work above is being done with ground ink, in fact), but you're still dealing with something that's more of a paint than anything. It actually does have about the same consistency as watercolor when I have my ratios right.
One of the many things I keep telling myself is I should really start using my brushes as brushes instead of the world's softest nib, but when I can get it to work without busting up my hand or accidentally blotting my paper, it looks so good. The sheer dynamism of line thickness is absolutely unmatched, and the pressure can change from hair-fine to thick with the tiniest twitch of the hand.
Unfortunately, the pressure can change from hair fine to rail thick with the tiniest twitch of the hand. Believe it or not, all the ink on this bat took about an hour for me, mostly because I had to move very carefully to make sure I kept the lines looking dynamic instead of sloppy.
For the background, I'm sort of wondering if I want it to be hard black too, or if I want to paint it in a grey tone so that my bats stand out without getting lost in the details of the background.
I think I'll have to sleep on it before I decide.
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