 |
| http://tomsarmo.blogspot.com/ |
Frank-in-Progress.
I'm smitten with pen and ink. Always have been. Nothing gets me to the state of
total creative awareness like the zen act of making repetitive lines with pen and ink.
Time stops, the outside world disappears, and I don't care that my studio is in chaos.
Really, most times the studio is pretty neat,
but working towards a show deadline has me more
concerned with production than clutter. Plus, it's not fair that in some
past posts, the studio has appeared mostly organized.
This messed up work-space brings me to the real point of this post: Pen and ink!
On the drawing table is this book:
This version, published in 1930, was found it in a used book store a few months ago, and it is stunning! My go-to volume when I want to explore and revitalize my pen-work. I've owned the newer edition of it (titled Rendering in Pen and Ink) since art school, but this old fellow trumps that one with more illustrations and thorough discussion.
Sorry about the phone pics, but I wasn't about to cram this onto my scanner.
Here are the end papers. Yes, admittedly, I am an old-book nerd.
As a kid, fascinated with line, I studied Tenniel's illustrations for the Alice books, Dore's illustrations--especially those from The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, and the works of John Leech. Like Franklin Booth, I mistakenly thought those engravings were pen and ink drawings. Unlike Franklin Booth's beautiful renderings, my resulting works are far from elegant and controlled. Random and spontaneous they are, and quickly drawn...
...like this detail shows.
Still, revisiting Arthur Guptill's book put me in the mood to explore, so the following
Frankenstein's Creature-sequence shows a bit more self-control. Not that I like it any better, it's just different.
The extent of my thumbnail output for this one.
 |
| http://tomsarmo.blogspot.com/ |
An in-progress detail.
 |
| http://tomsarmo.blogspot.com/ |
Same detail with a warm acrylic wash and some highlight-lifting...
 |
| http://tomsarmo.blogspot.com/ |
...and some strengthened highlights with white gouache.
 |
| http://tomsarmo.blogspot.com/ |
Finally, a bit of acrylic ink for color.
Granted, the ink-line application is only slightly less random and unruly than usual, but it was a blast to do,
and I learned a lot.
Thanks--as always-- for reading!
