Comfortable Shoes Studio

3 Step Sketches

I've been messing about with a trio of pens- the Pentel Hybrid Technica and 2 Pentel Pocket brush pens(PBP), one with black ink and the other with gray. It's been a great combination. For the image below I looked up images on Flickr's Commons page. I happened upon some images from Florida's Archives of various southern ment from the early 1900's, some of whom were Civil War Veterens. I particularly enjoyed this guy.

I started roughly sketching in his face with the Pentel Hybrid Technica (review to follow.) I looked mainly for the large shapes of light and dark, blocking in the dark areas, leaving lights alone. I looked for the edges of things like his eyes, dark shadows, and hair. I used the pen quickly, spending no more than 5 minutes on this part of the sketch.(If I had been doing this a year ago I'd have spent about 10 to 15 min and gone much more slowly.)

 

After I'd blocked in the stuff I felt was important I put down the Technica and switched over to the PBP (pocket brush pen) filled with Omas New Gray ink. I was able to quickly put in the areas of lighter shadow and then build more layers upon that to create more darks. I can't over emphasis the virtues of this ink for sketching- the fact that it starts out as a nice silvery gray and gets darker and darker with additional layers is fantastic. It is not light fast, but is perfectly fine in a sketchbook.

After I was happy with the level of shadows I'd built up with the gray ink I grabbed the PBP with black ink and started to darken the darkest area and add some additional texture with it. The eyes, hair, and shadows were all deepened with this pen.

This pen combination is great, the Technica is great for quick little sketches, it handles being treated roughly quite well. There are some areas where the gray ink will lift the technica ink if I've done really heavy scribbles that overlay one another. It's not noticable in the finished sketch. If you wanted to sketch in pen and ink, these are all the tools you'd need.( I mean, you could add a fountain pen or two, just in case you want another line....)

 

Review: Pentel Arts Pocket Brush Pen

I have been coveting a pocket brush pen for awhile. I have a brush pen but it has a incredibly long handle and is a pain because of that. I was comp shopping Michael’s when I came upon this pen. Imagine my horror when I got to the counter and found I’d left my 40% off coupon at home... I put the pen back and came back later. With my 40% off coupon I snagged this pen for a measly $10.83, which is less than I could find it online.

 

It’s sold on a blister pack like most other markers and pens are at Michael’s. Once out of the packaging its a nice looking shiny black pen. It’s comparable in size to most pens on the market. It’s very light weight even with the cartridge plugged into the pen. After wielding a TWSBI 540 for an extended writing session earlier in the day, this is like writing with a cloud. The pen is all black except for a Kanji character on the cap near the clip and the pentel name on the opposite side of the cap.

 

 

After installing the cartridge the ink descends into the brush rather quickly, the brush was fully loaded with 60 seconds of installing the cart. The tip is soft, flexible but springs to a point immediately after pressing it down fully. It is capable of giving a hair thin line or a swath of ink 5mm wide. The ink flow is generous and kept up with some very quick line work. The line variation is quite nice and relatively easy to control.

 

 

 

The ink in the cartridges is reported to be in water resistant. Something that I found interesting is that the back proclaims that the “fittings” are leak proof. This tells me that with some silicone grease this pen could EASILY be converted to eye dropper fill. For me, this is a VERY VERY interesting thing. In my testing I found that the ink is water resistant once dry on paper and when wet gives a very nice wash effect with a nice even gray tone. In effect you could take just this and a water brush sketching and you could do the sketch, allow it to dry, add more ink, add water and get a nice gray tone for your shadows. The ink is not water resistant on acrylic paint until it is FULLY dry. It writes without issue on acrylic, no skipping or beading up. It does take quite some time to dry on acrylic paint- to get to the fully dry point it needs a few minutes.

 

 

 

This pen is a very good price when 40% off but at full price at Michael’s I’m not sure. I’d rather put together a $25 order with Jetpens.

I'll probably do an update to this review once I run through the 2 carts that came with the pen and convert it to eyedropper style.

Reg $16.99 at Michael’s $14 at JetPens

Review: Loew Cornell Simply Art Fine Tip Marker 4 Pack

Loew Cornell Simply Art Fine Tip Marker $5.99/ 4 pack @ Joann's

 

 

I was doing some comparison shopping for my upcoming class on pen and ink drawing and I stumbled upon the Loew Cornell Fine Tip 4 pack at Joann’s for $5.99. They claim to be water resistant and non- bleeding. One look at the package and you can tell they are clearly a knock off of Pigma Micron pen put out by Sakura. The short cap, metal clip, and cap post on the end of the pen gives it away.

 

 

The markers are sold in a blister package with some claims and suggestions. The first claim is that they are water resistant. The second they won’t bleed. The back of the package suggests that you can use them with watercolors and other markers. I’ll get to these claims shortly.

The pens have a matte black barrel that is comfortable to hold. The pen is very lightweight. The cap posts securely to the back end of the marker with a satisfying click. While writing with the marker I found the ridge where the nib section meets the barrel to be quite sharp and uncomfortable. I suspect that this will be the main reason I stop using these markers.

 

 

 

 

 

While writing I found the fiber tip to be quite smooth on all pens but the largest, .08, and that nib was dry, as if it had dried out in it’s packaging or was out of ink. The sketching experience was not bad at all, the line was smooth and consistent for each tip. There is no line variation unless you switch pens. The ink is black but seems to gray out as it dries, leaving behind a dark gray line rather than a black line.

 

An additional flaw is that the cap is the only part with a size designation and it’s easily missed so caps could easily be put on the wrong pen. The barrels are only marked with the Loew Cornell name.

As for the water resistance, they are, sort of. I found that a lot of the ink lifted with a fast brush over with water. Leaving behind a strong gray area in any spot that was damp. There was a LOT of bleeding that would discolor any watercolor wash applied over it. This also washed out the lines. I went over my test area with another brush load of water and worked the area with the brush, nothing that would be called a scrub, and with a soft brush. The thinnest lines lifted almost completely and black lines were left grayer than before. The gray that is left is a very nice color. Knowing that these create a wash like this is actually pretty useful, one could throw these into a sketch kit with a waterbrush and get some pretty nice sketches with a wide range of tones of gray.

All in all these aren’t a bad value for $6 as long as you take the negatives into consideration- the grip itself, that one of the 4 pens I got wasn’t working properly, they are kinda water resistant, and that only the cap is marked for size. On the good side of things, you get 4 markers that write a lot like a Micron for a lot less, make wonderful washes, are all black and write pretty smoothly.

I’d recommend these for anyone who is interested in trying out this style of pen- very fine fiber tip. I don’t think these will sell you on the style though, they are too uncomfortable to write/sketch with for long periods of time.... Though a nail file might take the sharp edge off the grip area... Might try that, if I do I’ll let you know all about it. I want to suggest these for kids, but I don't want people to assume that I'm saying they are only for kids. I guess I'd say these are good for older kids- teenagers who are sketching for art class, or are writing or for someone who wants to test this style of pen out. you won't get the same performance as you would with a Micron but it's a good point to start.

 

Realistic vs Unrealistic Goals

I've been planning on doing a little side project from all my other projects, because, you KNOW I need another project! The side project is loosely called "You Said Something, It Was Really Important." (OR, "You Said Something, I've Never Forgotten.")* It consists of photos from my journal, taken all hi-res, made into a PDF and then loaded to MagCloud. From there you'll be able to get a magazine or a download or both. Awesome.

As I was concieving this little project it took a lot less time in my mind, shooting pictures should take X amount of time, creating the PDF should take X amount of time, I can get it done in a night!

Not.

Shooting hundreds of pictures takes hours, not an hour. When you take a picture of a journal you end up having to figure out the BEST way to get the image and it took a few minutes of set up and a couple of tries to get a set up that worked properly for most of my journal page. Also , please note that a large sheet of plexi glass keeps your pages flat and a polarizing filter helps cut the glare and makes colors pop. Once i figured that out I STILL had to wade through the good and the bad in the journals. Some of the stuff is too personal and other still could get me fired from the DayJob if I publish it. I tried to keep a good balance and stayed on the edge- you get to see some stuff that I haven't put online, in hi res, printed glory AND I get to stay employed. It's a win!

In the end I realize I've got more than once zine's worth of stuff or one really FAT zine full of stuff. I'm struggling with how big do I want to make this thing? 50 Pages? 90 pages? 150 pages? Add to that, if I do 150 pages then I'll probably never do another, and I think I want to do another. Also the cost of the thing goes up dramaticaly if I do more than 50 pages. I want to keep it affordable. (BUT, how cool would a 150 page zine be?)

The other part of this is, I really thought, once I shoot the pictures I can flood them into publisher and get my PDF done. Yeah not so easy. There is no easy way to flood 50 images into publisher all at the same size. They all come in at different sizes, need to be resized to the correct size, put in the RIGHT spot, contract and color tweaked so they look correct, background color chosen, etc... Graphic designers of the world I salute you. (Also please tell me that the Adobe suite is easier to use than publisher... Future goal: get a Mac and Adobe.)

So I'm about 33% done and feeling kind of bummed that I won't be able to finish this by the weekend. "You Said Something" won't be ready for another week or so. I'm still debating if I add captions or not. How many words do I add, if I add any at all? Maybe that should all be hand written too... You see where I'm going here? I'm one of those peopel that dives into a project like this head first, no plans and figures it out as I go along,I give myself unrealistic and unattainable goals and then I'm surprised when I bung it up.

So now I know ho wmuch work goes into this, I'll make sure I set more realistic goals in the future.

Some Observations: On Paper and Frisket

Iv'e been working on a variety of papers, settling on Canson's XL Watercolor paper, for a variety of reasons- it works well with the watercolors I'm using, it's cost is nice and it has a relatively smooth surface that my pens rather like. It's also got 2 sides, a right and a wrong, ot a front and a back; which ever way you prefer to call it, but I like the judgemental aspect of right and wrong... In this case. Any how.

One side has a little more tooth an grab to it than the other, this is the right side. The reverse side AKA WRONG is smoother. It also has less sizing... This affects a number of things- how ink and paint react with the surface. Less size means it's more absorbent.

This is good and bad.

It's bad when you use a mask. I applied a liquid frisket rather heavily to the surface of one of my paintings and the frisket grabbed to the paper so strongly it ripped when I removed it. Quite badly. It was crazy frustrating.

I went ahead with the mixed media piece anyway, knowing my paint would adhere the ripped pieces down and it would be okay, but I had to change my plans for color and other ideas for the image, and I know that the torn piece could come back to haunt me.

Additionally in my frisket/mask adventure I've found that the frisket REALLY doesn't like the spray inks. If the frisket is too thin the spray ink "leaks" through it. A total pain in the ass. So I've learned to put on one thin coat and then a heavier coat to seal it all up.

Honesty, Authenticity, Truthiness and Resonance

When I was in school everyone talked about wanting to make "honest work." The new buzzword for honest work is "authentic." We could spend days over glasses of red wine and mugs of coffee (as we did in college) talking about what this means. In the end it all boils down to, "I want to make work that resonates deeply withing myself and has deep personal meaning." End of story.

Or is it?

I think the truth of all the discussion and thinking on these topics is that essentially we're afraid of what we put on the paper/canvas/board/ or in the journal. Many of us make work and hide it away. It's why the art journal is so perfect, at the end of your art session you close the covers and never ever have to confront what you made again. Simple right? Except you're missing out on a  prime piece of the art journal process- learning from what you've put down and thus from yourself.

I think that fear is why we also buy into what the industry pumps out for us. It's far easier to follow the industry's recipe for success than to forge our own path and style.

Maybe the real question we need to ask ourselves is, "How do we move past the fear and into creating our work? How do we learn from ourselves to create work that resonates deeply?"

It's this hard work that an art journal is intended and supposed to help us explore. If you never look back at your pages and be critical of them (without gessoing over them) and learning from those pages what are you missing out on. If you focus on nothing but making pretty pretty pages I think you're missing out on a very important part of art journaling.

Here's a challenge: Go through your art journal, either the current journal you're working in or a recent one. Use a sharpie, write on the margins of a page what you'd change on that page. If you are too chicken you can use a post it note. If you get bold, draw right on top of the page with your sharpie.

Out of the Can Thinking

I've been watching some old episodes of Julia and Jacques Cooking at Home on Hulu. I grew up watching Julia Child on PBS. PBS being one of the few channels that came in and was approved for me to watch. I credit a lot of my enjoyment of cooking to both my Mom and ravenously watching Julia Child's shows.

One of the things I notice as I watch J&J:CaH is that Julia rambles on quite a bit about how Americans are afraid of their food and how the diet industry is winning out over taste. Secretly, I could watch these shows over and over again.

Julia has a good lesson for us, and it applies to art. We can't let the industry win in dictating what we want and how we want it. Child's recipes for successful tasty dishes included fresh and basic ingredients combined in ways to create layers of food, she poo-poo'd using canned foods and already made stuff. She stated over and over, "It's not hard, the recipe is a guideline!" Art and art journaling are no different. We should be demanding the basic ingredients and supplies we need to make our art and not canned supplies. After all it's not hard to customize and create your own stuff if you only

Dede and Eveline are a prime example of taking a recipe and making it their own and taking it to entirely new heights. Dede put out a challenge to Eve that she make Tim Holtz's 12 Tags of Christmas without using his voluminous list of supplies. Eve took up the challenge as did Dede. their results are nothing short of spectacular. Out of the can thinking at it's finest.

The art and craft industry responds to demands, but as it's a big slow and lumbering machine full of people all trying to get the NEXT BIG IDEA and thus the next big paycheck. The lumbering machine hears about art journaling, tries to figure out what it is, there are big IMPORTANT meetings in board rooms to try and figure it out, there are more meetings in board rooms, and hapless cogs in the machine are sent off to investigate ART JOURNALING. They know nothing about it, they watch a few youtube videos, read a few blogs, and maybe a few of the more intrepid cogs join AJNing. They take some notes, maybe even dabble in a little art journaling and finally something like the Smash Book is born.

Now, thousands of people will be introduced to Art Journaling via the SmashBook. It might even be a decent product, but it's not what I consider a true art journal. It's an interesting concept and an interesting way to finally grab hold of a potential market. Hey, it's even got it's own special glue stick, color coordinated tabs, and a hundred other things to buy to go with it. ARGH!!!

Go simple, buy yourself a sketchbook, a cheap one, a few markers, maybe a cheap set of acrylics or watercolors, and start splashing shit around on the page. Try stuff, watch some videos on youtube get a few recipes but for goodness sake don't be afraid to only use it as a guideline.

 

Weekly Round Up: Videos

This week's videos are late because I had an Art Adventure on a super warm winter day! Cappuccino, breakfast sandwiches, walking around the city of Salem, and of course sketching. (Also planning for a new secret project or two destined to hit awesomeness this coming summer.)

So here you go this week's videos:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Journal Flip: Moleskine #3

I started this journal the spring before I found out that a family member was going to need emergency open heart surgery and have her aeortic valve replaced. I found out that August and the surgery occured in November. Not long after finding out I ordered a new journal, the happy summer drawings and paintings didn't seem to fit with the down and somewhat sad theme that seemed to pop up.

I've never bothered to go back and fill the remaining pages. I don't think it would fit with the journal. Sometimes it's time to simply move onto a new journal and start fresh. It's okay to simply move on.

 

Papers I've Been Using

I've been testing out a variety of papers for my automatic drawings. I'm not being very scientific about this, just trying things out with my style of working. I have done a large amount of them in a Canson Universal Sketchbook. It's a great sketchbook, the paper is sturdy and accepts light washes with ease. The paper cockles when I use more watercolor. With ink it's perfect.

So I taped down some pieces of Canson XL Bristol. I like this for ink too, in fact of all the papers the ink really pops off this page. It's bright white and after watercolors dry the paper is smooth and flat. It's really great but I didn't like how watercolors behaved on it's surface. It was absorbent and dried very fast.

Next up I tried another Canson paper, Montval, not or rough watercolor paper. It's one of my favorites with watercolor. I love the nooks and crannies of it's rough surface, it makes watercolors blend in amazing ways. Ink also looks great on it, but the pen tends to skip across it's surface. It's a little harder to draw on than the other papers. When it dries, it's perfectly flat.

I think what I'll end up using is a cold pressed watercolor paper. The hard part with this whole thing is that I never know what I'm in the mood for, I let these images grow organicly and the end result is that I never know if I'm going to cross hatch the hell out of an image or flood the page with watercolor, so I need something that can handle both.

Weekly Round Up of Videos

I usually post these on Saturday but with it being New Year's eve and me doing nothing... I forgot. So any who, here you go.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Artfire Sale

I'm running a sale in my artfire shop. I'm moving back to etsy. I'm sure many of you will be happy to read that. I'm offing 25% off everything except my art. I don't want to spend the time to relist everything on etsy. So you get a good deal on journals, journaling supplies, and jotter notebooks. I haven't made a book in ages so these are some of the last of my handmade books. I'm not sure when I'll be making more. Code is LAMEPOLICY and is good for one use and 60 days.

Art Experiments: In Search of a Gray Ink

 I've been workingon the automatic drawings, and one of the directions I've wanted to take them is to use a very fine pen with a nice gray ink as the first layer of the drawing. I considered using pencil but really don't want to be able to erase the lines. Part of the automatic process is that the lines stay from start to finish. I wanted to use the gray ink with my extra fine RapidoCraft pen to get a fine hairline that fades into the background when a darker color is put of the top.

I searched the network's archives to see if I could find a gray ink that fulfilled my needs. I found a few reviews, but gray inks don't seem to be too popular. I then went to Gouletpens.com and checked out their swab shop tool to see the colors of the grays they had in stock. Still nothing definitive. Instead I ordered 5 samples of gray colors. Each was from a different brand and most I'd seen mentioned at some point on the network.

The 5 colors I ordered were:

    Omas New Gray
    Private Reserve Gray Flannel
    Diamine Grey
    Noodler's Lexinton Grey
    Iroshizuku Fuyu-syogun

And my 4 needs are:

    That it survive being wet and not bleed too profusely. A distinct line must remain.
    It not foul pale watercolors like yellow.
    It not foul shades of blue, turning them muddy or green
    It recede to the background when black is put over the top in a drawing.

I performed a test on each of these criteria with each ink on 3 types of paper:

    Clairefontaine Graf It
    Canson Universal Sketch 65lb
    Exacompta Plain Journal

The results were the same across all papers, though with the Graf It there was additional lifting across the inks when lifting was noted.

Diamine Grey was too dark to be a grey I would use for my drawings and it lifted the worst of all the inks.

Private Reserve Gray Flannel was also too dark for my use. I can't say that I actually like this color either. It has a green cast to it that I do not enjoy. It was also the second worst for fouling the pale watercolors. It was also barely discernible from black.

Noodler's Grey was the only ink that did not lift at all. Thus colors floated over it's surface and were not fouled nor muddied. However, it is very dark when in a pen running wet. It might be a contender if it were in a dry pen. I will be loading this into my  freshly cleaned RapidoCraft XF to see if it will work. I'm not convinced. It does hands down win on every other test.

Iroshizuku Fuyu-syogun was a good shade that is easily discernible from an overlay of black. It did lift, though not badly. It slightly muddied the pale colors, though not too badly. I really like the color. It does not fit the bill because it is too blue. It's also REALLY expensive.

The perfect shade of gray is the Omas New Gray. It perfectly matches the pale silvery line of pencil. It's clearly gray without a green tinge or looking like I added a bunch of water to my black ink. It's just a cool clear gray. It's pale on the page and black ink pops on top of it. It does however lift. It muddies the pale yellow but mixes well with the pale blue. Even when it does lift it leaves behind a discernible line.

I have one last test. It will require me to leave the inks on the page over night to see if time will allow them to bond with the paper more. Given how I work the more immediate test is the better indicator of how the ink will respond to me and my methods of working but the additional information will be useful. Click any of the images to see these tests in hi-res glory.

The above images is the Canson Universal Sketch paper.

This is the Clairefontaine Graft It pad.

This is the Exactompta plain journal.(review on this to come.)

 

Video: Weekly Round Up

@AjournalJourney on twitter sort of challenged me to make some of these automatic drawings in black and white or black and white in spot color. So I took the challenge, and it's been a blast. It's been really cool. I've especially enjoyed making the drawing in black and white and using red ink over the top. Classic. jarring.

Anyway, take a look: (also if you don't mind, thumbing them up if you like them, it would be greatly appreciated. The sycophantic followers are at it again, thumbing them down. OR someone has too much time on their hands.)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Technique Tuesday: Blocks of Color

This is a simple idea, create blocks of color using watercolor, or what ever media suits you and then write or draw in those blocks. Instead of blocks, what about circles or triangles or trapezoids? Anything goes as long as you're having fun with it.

 

Die cuts, tea and friends

My friend Jane and I go on what I term "Art Adventures" every other weekend. This weekend she wanted to see my set up for shooting videos and so she did. She'd also been itching to see the cricut machine in action. We drank tea, talked and drew together. I shot a automatic drawing video with her present (that was a first) and told her what I was doing with the set up, start to finish.

After that we got on the computer and I did a little video editing- sandwich method style (aka using my own template) and we dug out the cricut.

While she was here we talked about the endless possibilities that Makes the Cut gives to the cricut (Don't worry I gave her a primer on the evils of the litigious overlord ProvoCrap) and stuck a RapidoCraft in there. From there it snowballed, more ideas, and more. I'm telling you, it was great, I looked at the cricut and MTC with new ideas.

After that I cut these- gears of my own design, 100%, not Tim Holtz's but mine. Using MTC  I combined basic shapes to get these.

A Week of Automatic Drawings

I've been loading an automatic drawing video to YouTube every day. I shoot them the week before and then edit on the weekend, then load each day to youtube, usually in the AM, if I can remember, lately, I've been forgetting. This week's were a little more fun than the week previous. The upcoming week holds some fun stuff, I've been experimenting with black and white with occasional spot colors or with blue ink on white paper. So far I'm enjoying the direction this is pushing me in. I can't wait until you see some of the new stuff.

Here are the videos:

 

 

 

 

 

 

Most are available on my artfire or etsy shop. IF you see something that isn't listed feel free to contact me about it and I'll let you know if it's still available.

Automatic Drawings: For Sale Edition

I decided to put some of the automatic drawings on my Etsy and Artfire accounts. I'll be putting more up soon. Most fo the images I've loaded up thus far have not had their videos released onto YouTube yet. So if you thought it would be neat to see one of these in person, now is your chance. All are matted with a nice white beveled 8x10 mat, with a 5x7 inch window. Ready to frame or hang in a krystalphane bag. The colors are more vibrant in person than on screen or the camera can capture. They are priced to move at $20 with $5 shipping here in the US. (Hint hint- it might be a perfect gift for yourself for the holidays.)

Check out my Etsy here:

(Apparently I can't embed the Etsy mini here. Poop)

Check out my Artfire here:

Visit comfortableshoes's ArtFire Shop

Here's a gratuitous automatic drawing video:

 

Journaling to Improve My Mood

Last night as I lay in my bed wishing I could fall asleep I realized these little automatic drawings not only reflect my mood but improve it. I can come home after a long day, sit down with my pen, journal, and watercolors and feel much better by journaling it out via automatic drawing. Looking back I've turned to the automatic drawings at difficult times in my life. These drawings pepper my journals and sometimes fill sketchbooks with their flowing lines.

At one point  I had a lot of rules for the automatic drawings. At one point they were only done in Sharpie and in one long continuous line like colors could not touch sides; those were just a few. Eventually I felt that the rules restricted my ability to explore the subconscious and conscious themes that came up in these drawings, so I dumped the rules.

 

 

Trying Something New with Something Old

For this automatic drawing I created a mottled field of color with my watercolors. I dried it out and then drew on top of the washy colors. I then added more color on top of the drawing to draw out some of the fun colors that were already present, it also helped to add emphasis to the drawing.

 

This is somethign I'll be trying out again and again. The watercolors added a really nice feel to the paper, a tactile sensation I really enjoyed. Also drawing on the color was fun too. Adding the darker colors of watercolor to various areas really allowed me to focus in on some of those neat bleeding effects.

Also take note that the sycophantic followers have thumbed down  the video. Awesomesauce.

Show it (and me) some love.

Time to Relax

After a long cold day at the DayJob sucking down hot tea and coffee trying to stay warm, and awake, I came home and was unable to sleep. My buddy let me take a goofy picture o him and I decided I had to paint him from the photo. It's not the greatest image of him ever but it was relaxing to paint that night.

 

Technique Tuesday: Ink Wash

Ink Wash is an incredibly old skool technique that I learned in High School. It was taught to us in Art 1 as a way to learn about value and tone, as well as their relationship. We used film canisters (retro) and India ink, which is waterproof once dried. The idea behind it is that you start with 3 to 5 levels of light to dark watered down ink. You apply it with a brush to capture the value of the image you are trying to capture. You add additional layers of watered down ink to achieve your dark darks. At the end you'd use a crow quill pen to add in details, or if you were "that good" you'd get a liner brush and use a light hand to add those final details.

In college I had a friend who did the most amazing ink washes in blue higgens waterproof ink. Amazing stuff. Since then I've sketched in black, red, blue, blue-black and a variety of other colors. Traditional is with black so that's what I've shown in my video.

I use Noodler's Black ink for this, but you can use any ink brand you want.  The vials I use are from GouletPens.com. I used my syringe that I referenced in my last post about fountain pens to measure the ink.

Anyway, watch the video, try ink wash, it's an easy and fun technique.

 

My Automatic Drawings

I've been making what I call "automatic drawings" since the late '90s. The idea is that I put a pen to paper and move it around in ways that come to me, subconciously without deep thought. Think of it as a drawing style similar to stream of conciousness writing. I've noticed that during different parts of my life different images and symbols arise from the depths of my mind. When I was younger the images were raw, emotional and largely symbolic of my life at that time. The symbols and the images have changed but the process is roughly the same.

 

 

 

 

 

Travelogues by MUK

I adore this guy's travel journals.

 

 

 

 

 

Saying NO

Sometimes as an artist you have to say no. I've been approached to do a couple of murals. I accepted one and declined the other. Why? The pay was good, materials were to be bought from me, the issue was the content. I know my style, methods and my capabilities. Could I have done the mural in question? Yeah. Could I have done it without a ton of headache? No.

At some point there is a point where there is no return on the investment. Sure I could have gotten a bunch of art materials, been paid an hourly wage plus some cash.

But as I researched the content for the mural to create that first sketch I realized I didn't know a lot about the intended subject nor could I get into the subject. The more I reseached the more I realized the less I liked it. So today I declined the offer.

I hate to say no to an offer like that, it's money that comes in from ART and well that feels good, but the road to the goal has to feel good too, otherwise it's just not worth it