Inklings --- a place for ink drawings

[arttorney]

leaving brushes in water a long time can lead to splitting of the wood of the handle, or at least the paint peeling off. (Obviously the plastic handled ones are a different story).

The bristles splay when left over paint or ink builds up in the base of the bristles down inside the ferrule. That's the good of the soap and water wash. You want to get all that stuff up out of there every single time. I almost never have to buy a new brush now that I have become obsessive about cleaning out the bristles.

[Sudsy]

Pilot Precise V5 on ink jet paper. Got real frustrated with color, and my digital art stuff... So I went old school and got my idea on paper!

[CCThrom]

Anid Maro - You probably don't need to soak your brushes that much. I give my brushes a good cleaning only when I'm really ready to stop. If I just need to put the brush down for a while, I find it's ok to just swish it in my cup of rinse water and lay it flat on a folded paper towel. In any event, it's not a good idea to leave your brush upright in a container of water, as over time that will cause the bristles to bend or splay.

At the end of the day, I like to use "Master's Brush Cleaner and Preserver" to give the brushes a good cleaning, though regular soap will work fine too. You can leave a little brush cleaner in the bristles and re-shape the brush point with your fingers... just make sure you rinse it well before you use it again.

I guess this is a good place to mention it... if you are really into ink as a medium, do yourself a favor and get a copy of JA Smith's "The Pen and Ink Book". I plug this book every chance I get... it's an amazing resource, but very focused on this particular medium.

[Anid Maro]

Arttorney & CCThrom, thanks both of you for the advice. Now I can start properly cleaning my brushes, and only once per setting to boot.

I've made a note of that book too CCThrom, I'll keep an eye out for it.

[steve pete]

...technically these are done in ink.... well at least part of them.... they are accompanied by areas of gouache...

Unnecessary Searching For Something Other Than Now

[steve pete]

Thinking Instead of Being

[steve pete]

Aspiration Without Expectation

[OldJake666]

Hey,
I got a new Sumi-E brush from China Town and I really wanted to just do... something with it. I wanted to draw a portrait so I decided who better to ink than one of my favorite musicians and possibly the greatest inspiration for me to start playing bass - Martin Mendez.
It's black ink (Games Workshop... lol), and very diluted white paint (Windsor and Newton). All of the textures are hand made/painted, they're not photo over lays. The scan really makes it look bad, it's much better IRL.



I hope you like it!
Jake

[steve pete]

^^^ interesting outcome, the marks and stains outside of the actual portrait give the overall work a balanced quality... very visually pleasing. Very nice usage of your medium.

...got any more similar to this??

Keep up the hard work.

[Eric Young]

I haven't looked in this thread in a long time, I really like everyones ink work.
These are a few ink drawings I've done recently. Some are with brush but most are done with pen, either microns or dipping pen.

[keith eager]

For the Max The Mutt life drawing course, we draw exclusively with ink in the sketch-books. Because we are forced to live with our mistakes, we LEARN VERY QUICKLY.

[Collin Smiley]

here are mine there more abstract than what was originaly on this post but w/e i think they will do

[Collin Smiley]

Feel free to send me tips on how to improve my art!! I WANT TO LEARN !!

[krossj]

silly stuff

[Adam Synapse]

Portrait of french 60's actor Alain Delon done with a cd marker

[OldJake666]

^^^ interesting outcome, the marks and stains outside of the actual portrait give the overall work a balanced quality... very visually pleasing. Very nice usage of your medium.

...got any more similar to this??

Keep up the hard work.

No, that's the only one I've ever done actually. It was fun though so I'd like to do some more. Martin Mendez, the man in the painting, actually has possession of the original now.

[krossj]

some other stuff, the fish have a bit of acrylic and the frog is from ref

[OldJake666]

F***in sick stuff man!

[ArneSReismueller]

[3alola]

thank you alot

[Red Fleet]

Chicken wizard!

war artist!

[krossj]

more stuff

[Eric Young]

This is a portrait of Anne Rice as a vampire that I did for my illustration class. Ink with dipping pen and brush and stars done with white ink.

[krossj]

more ink

[ewschott]

Please excuse the length of this post, and if you are not personally mentioned.

It seems some of my work “?” out, which could be because it was really messing up my web site stats.

I just wanted to comment and ask some questions on some of the awesome work on this thread; I find all the work to be unique and worthy of all clapclapclap’s.


As I said, I am sure I am much older than most of you – I am also an academic realist so may approach pen & ink differently. My choices of inks are different, subjects, paper, holders and nibs etc.

Do most of you work from images in your minds? What a talent! I can see that many are “doodles” or thumbnails, but for the more finished work, I would love to see the whole piece to see how you handled composition and your edges overall, (I think some people who use washes, well actually line too – forget that edges are just as important with ink as paint).

I loved looking back through this whole thread and seeing all the ingenuity and creativity. It was also interesting to see lots of architectural technique using line. Also wondered if many of you do hard-line illustrations professionally? Lots of technical pens, and Indian ink (yuck).


FINGERS:
Coming from me a classical realist, I love your work! You use positive and negative space is just about perfection (I don’t know that any artist actually achieve true perfection). Your breaking of line is awesome.

I have to ditto, comments about Fingers with LE FRAR.


STEVE PETE:
Just inspiring! You have such a talent of working with lost edges and your realism and suggestion is so successful. Have you tried the sumi ink vs. the gouache? Do you use the gouache under line work for your “realistic” areas?

DSL:
Awesome, you explained your work perfectly

CHEECYSHAY:
Love it!

ODORA:
Great line and pointillism to create “reality” wow.

BOBBYKRO:
I just have to say DVD said it all, your work is incredible.

DR. SATAN:
I love your handling of the conte with ink washes (if this is indeed what it is). Your “mud” faces are awesome.

WOO4:
Do you work from observation? Oops reading down, I saw your reference. Your older textured line drawings, are they studies of the masters? Adding a bit of wash, they certainly could be. Your use of line is really great in these; I think it shows a bit more atmosphere than your newer one – still good though!

KROSSJ:
I think your work is great! I love how you handle the medium - it is really interesting.

DB CLEMONS:
Will always be my hero, the king of ink and the person who taught me so many tricks. (I bet he’s regretting it after this winded post.)

JAKE KOBRIO:
How do you like your bamboo Japanese brushes? They are really hard for me to control. I lose the bristles really easy. Do you find that yours fan out and you lose the points right away? If not can you tell me the brand.

ANID MURO:
It sounds like you are dipping your brushes to deep into the bottle. Personally I keep a flat lid to dilute the ink for my washes and only use my brushes for this. (I use a distilled H2O for diluting.) I use the full strength bottle ink with just my pen nibs.

SHROUDSTAR:
Did you try the Bistre?
Some of the w/n inks – mainly the calligraphy – do not contain shellac, and are good ink. They also have a series of shellac. For this type my favorite is Senneliers, there luster is worth the nib clogging.

If the hardbound sketch book you are using, unless made by yourself, if it’s anything like mine, the paper is really not very good. Mine is “sketch” paper vs. drawing. If you want to do washes, especially with shellac, try a 500 series Strathmore, you can really push the ink around and add washes if need with your line work.

If you are using non-shellac, watercolor papers work really well, it adds a nice texture which buyers like. If you do use Bristol, make sure you get a good grade!


As I said at the beginning, I am so sorry about the length of this thread, I feel I can learn so much from others work and love to ask questions - I am really annoying at workshops. Also the old saying, once a teacher, always a teacher is a for real.


Not to mention I just totally screwed up my web site trying to upload some images, %#@& pointers are really messing me up between the two of them.

[ewschott]

I finally have my site straightened out so I can post at least one image. The other links bring up web pages, but it should give you a bit of my style and the different kind of ink I use, this one is in the Bistre.

I should qualify, I have a huge love of sheep, and especially their butts... go figure?




If anyone is interested in working with ink with pen washes, this is a demo on my site using a shellac based ink, but alas it is more for the older people


http://www.ewschott-fineart.com/inkD/inkD1.html

[Fingers]

Thank you for the nice comments, and don't worry about the age thing. Not everybody here is younger than yourself, and I think your ink tutorial is splendid for people of all ages.

[krossj]

thanks ewschott. cool stuff on your site. cheers

some more

[Fingers]

Done during various types of downtime at work Sakura Pigma and Sharpie markers on different types of paper.

[Timothy Duong]

Pen on yupo paper.