More Values

5/12/15 India ink wash, Zebra Comic G dip pen, Fabriano 140 lb. hot press paper

Original drawing by Rembrandt

Remember the values lesson I talked about last month when I took the intro to ink drawing workshop? Yesterday’s class was another reminder of that all-important concept as we again copied masters, this time with varying dilutions of India ink.

Although it was somewhat of a relief to get away from all that hatching, halfway through my first exercise (below, copied from a master whose name I’ve forgotten) I actually found myself missing all those tiny ink marks. Without the structure of initial lines, painting in shapes with nothing but ink washes can be almost as tedious. I had a fairly wide range of brush sizes in my arsenal, but somehow none seemed small enough for some of the tiny details apparent in the masterwork. But I tried my best to at least capture the range of values correctly.

The second exercise, a drawing of a lion by Rembrandt (above), was somewhat easier because we could use both line and wash, taking the best parts of both hatching and washes. 

5/12/15 India ink washes, Strathmore 400 140 lb. cold press paper

Original masterwork