Inky Hands

Every year since 2015, I’ve participated in InkTober, an annual online challenge that encourages artists to draw with ink every day in October. The philosophy behind InkTober is to commit to a drawing by inking it instead of leaving it as an easily erasable draft. Better yet, make the initial drawing with ink – skip the pencil draft altogether (something I started doing after my first few months of sketching and have done ever since).

This year some controversy surrounds InkTober (Google InkTober and plagiarism to learn about it), and I don’t know enough about it to judge or take a side. But the part about InkTober that I’ve always appreciated is that attitude of indelibility – making a commitment to a drawing with ink. It takes a bit more courage – ink offers none of the equivocation or tentativeness of pencil – but that very boldness is what makes us more confident drawers. And leaving the unerased, restated lines visible helps us learn.

Devoting a month to ink also refreshes my appreciation for the marks that can be made with various pens – the variable line widths of fountain pens and dip nibs; the unpredictable, organic beauty of brush pens; the pencil-like shading properties of Bic ballpoints. So although I’m not using the InkTober hashtag this year, I decided to celebrate the parts of the challenge that are meaningful to me simply by drawing in ink all month.

I did not, however, want yet another thing to do every day, so the ink drawings I am doing are part of my daily hand series. After more than two months of drawing with my right hand, I’m relieved that my left is back at work. And although I started this series with Bics, I’ve been using mostly pencils and other dry materials since May, so it’s a refreshing change to use ink. I started a fresh sketchbook with multi-colored pages – also a fun change. I’m not sure whether the paper in it will hold up to all the inks and pens I have in mind, but I guess I’ll find out. (No testing ahead of time – another bold move!) Ink on!

Ink boldly!

Lots of Lines

4/14/15 India ink, dip pen

This is as far as I got on yesterday’s ink drawing class assignment. The image I was copying (below) is actually a woodcut print, not a drawing – which makes all those lines even more amazing. As before, I really started getting into a meditative state making lots and lots of tiny hatched lines. At one point, the dip pen nib (or quill) I was using seemed too wide for the wood cut lines, so I switched to an even finer quill. That’s about the time my neck got sore, and I had to take a break!

Speaking of which, I see lots of blue sky and fluffy white clouds out there today – a nice break from our recent run of gray and rain. Time for some outdoor sketching!

Woodcut print

Once Again, it’s All About Values

4/8/15 India ink, dip pen, Bristol paper

Value, value, value: Just about every art class I’ve taken or technique book I’ve read has emphasized the importance of seeing and accurately conveying values. Yesterday afternoon I took a three-hour “Drawing in Ink” class at Gage Academy, and its focus was no different.

Mixing varying dilutions of India ink, we first used a medium-sized sumi brush to apply washes of ink to the paper, attempting to reproduce the values in photocopied works by masters. Instructor Eric Elliott advised us to squint and look only at the large shapes – not the details. (That’s advice I’ve heard in every watercolor sketching class I’ve taken!) Once all the values were sufficiently reproduced, we used a dip pen with India ink to draw in details. The point of the fine ink work was to help define the forms – not to outline the shapes already put in with washes.

Sketch of the David by Raphael

My first exercise was a Rembrandt painting, which I found relatively easy to reproduce because it had only a few values. The second was a portion of another painting (by some other long-dead master whom I’ve now forgotten. . . sorry) that I found more challenging because it had a wider range of values.

The third exercise was practicing hatching techniques by copying a sketch of Michelangelo’s David by Raphael (I started the exercise in class and finished today at home). Examining Raphael’s work, it was fascinating to see how the hatch marks were not random scratches; to the contrary, the lengths and curvature of the marks identified and shaped the forms. Eric warned us that if we got carried away with hatching, David’s smooth form would end up looking too hairy! (Unfortunately, he did start getting a bit hairy in my rendition, so I quickly decided it was time to stop.)

Some students seemed to find the hatching exercise tedious and tiring, but it was my favorite. Although I’m not a huge fan of traditional dip pens (gimme a fountain pen over a dip pen any day!), I have to say I thoroughly enjoyed the class – both the ink washes to create values and the tedious pen hatching.

Although I can’t see myself using dip pens with bottled ink while sketching on location, I’ve heard the value-value-value mantra often enough to know that whatever I learn from these sink techniques can be applied to any medium, and my sketches will be better for it.

Gage offers a variety of three-hour “quick start” classes like this one to give students an opportunity to try a small tasting of a particular medium or technique before committing to a full course. (Another one I took was “The Quick Sketch” in January.) I guess the strategy works: I immediately signed up for the full 10-week course, which begins next week!

4/7/15 India ink, dip pen, sumi brush, Bristol

Original painting by Rembrandt

4/7/15 India ink, dip pen, sumi brush, Bristol

Original painting