Leaf Ghost #7

This one represents a handful of firsts.

To begin with, it’s the first horizontal layout leaf ghost. The type of leaf also differs from the first six.

I’ve been playing around with dip pen nibs, and this is the first time I’ve used them for a leaf ghost. I used a couple of Speedball 56 Standard School nibs, though honestly cleanup is so easy that I could have stuck with one. 

The company that makes them describes this model as good for beginners, which is definitely what I am at this point. The differing line weights are the result of experiments with different angles, pressures and times between returning to the ink bottle for a fresh dip.

Speaking of ink, that actually isn’t new. It’s the same two colors I used for Leaf Ghost #3, for which I used a brush rather than a pen. Particularly for the carmine, the color is so different that it doesn’t even look like the same stuff. I think it looks better here, certainly more in keeping with what the manufacturer had in mind.

This is also my first time erasing the underdrawing. Especially with the gouache pieces, most of the pencil ended up covered anyway. But here the ink needed to stand alone without support from visible lines literally defining the edges.

And best of all, this is the first one I’m really happy with. It’s not that I disliked the first six. But this one really came closest to what I had in mind when I started both the overall project and the specific piece. I’m having great fun with the whole dip pen experience, and I will definitely be doing more leaf ghosts this way in the future.