Keeping track of progress on creative projects
Same inks as #181 only reversed. Typically lighter colors work better as backgrounds, but in this pairing I think the Evening Cherry Blossom stands out more as the leaf. Maybe it’s just because the brain doesn’t have to labor as hard to accept a red leaf.
Both combinations bear an odd resemblance to graphite, at least in the photos. Fortunately not as messy.
Almost done with “The Pit and the Pendulum.” Our nameless protagonist has escaped the blade. But what new horrors await? With luck, the next Poe ghost will tell.
Two new inks from the Shikiori set: Yozakura “Evening Cherry Blossom” and Chushu “Mid-Fall Grey.”
I create the thicker lines by rotating the page 90 degrees clockwise and drawing lines from the left-top to the bottom-right using the flat part of the tip of the nib like a paintbrush. Then I rotate back and draw the thin lines from left-bottom to right-top using the edge of the tip more like a knife.
I’m pleased with the result and curious about what a leaf looks like with the colors reversed. We shall see.
Today I finished the last of the exercises in Olive Yong’s Kawaii Kitties. Though I’ve read several how-to books on drawing, this is the first time I’ve ever completed all of the lessons from beginning to end.
The cats were fun to draw, and they were also a good excuse to practice working with Fresco to produce images that look like they were drawn with pens and markers.
Another color study, sort of the reverse of #160. Not exactly the same colors, but the same organics-vs-metallics except swapping foreground and background.
I love how the painting looks completely different when viewed from the side, the reflected light on the gold and bronze clearly revealing the leaf that’s much harder to see straight on.
This is likely to be the color combination I use when I do another version using an airbrush.
Poe ghost humor: this came from the same kind of tree as the last one, but the upper right part of the leaf was missing. It looked as if it had been sliced off, which made it a particularly good choice for this point in “The Pit and the Pendulum.”
Also the Ides of March, come to think of it.
Back to Copics. Orange ran dry (wouldn’t want to go a whole leaf without a dead marker), but Vermilion stepped up and finished the job.
Back to the water mister. Two new tricks this time:
First, I drew the leaf on the masking film before removing the backing. That allowed me to cut it out and then stick it down, saving me from turning the drawing into a doily. It worked reasonably well, so I’ll probably keep doing it this way in the future. If nothing else, this allows me to work on paper rather than using illustration board every time I want to try this technique.
And second, I sprayed the water on gradually, two or three squirts at a time. Letting it dry between applications gave me the drops I’m after without the pools that turned the last one into a mess.
I told myself that I wouldn’t do any additional sprays when I first started seeing the drops merge together, which you can see a little toward the top. I think if I’d been a bit more careful about keeping the mister higher above the surface, I might have gotten in at least another round or two.
One of my favorite things about this technique is how the water brings out the color. The ink as first applied to the paper looks black, but thinning it out with water droplets brings out the “copper pheasant.”
Also for the record, the smudge on the border at the upper left was an accident during the inking phase and wasn’t caused by the water.
When I finish an ink ghost, one of the last steps is to remove the pencil sketch with an eraser. Specifically this eraser, which I’ve had since I was in art school many years ago. It’s still working well, though its wrapper finally came apart.
“The Pit and the Pendulum” continues. It’s starting to get good again.
Yet another snow day provides time for yet another leaf ghost.
This one continues techniques tested in #172. While that one didn’t have enough water, this one had a bit too much. Perhaps next time I’ll find a happy medium.
I used hot press illustration board this time, which worked much better than the Bristol board from #172. If nothing else, it was thick enough that slicing the masking film didn’t cut all the way through. Plus the water didn’t warp it at all.
The ink is new too: Shikiori Yamadori “Copper Pheasant.”
Like #169, the ink here just kinda turned into a puddle of squish. Either the tan sketchbook paper isn’t as absorbent as I thought, or the technique just isn’t working.
In case anyone’s interested about what goes into a Poe ghost, they’re created by alternating between pens with different line widths (0.7mm in blue, 0.35mm in grey) and different ink colors (red with tape on the ends, black without).
The text for this ghost must have been the set-up episode that runs when it isn’t sweeps month. The major event on this page is the nameless narrator tripping and almost falling into a hole.
A few ghosts ago I got some unexpected results from ink on mixed media paper. Since then I’ve been playing around with ways to apply water to an inked surface. Today I decided to try another drawing based on what I found.
Working on bristol board, I created the same chessboard pattern as #169. Then I masked off the non-leaf part and sprayed the surface with a mist of water.
Results were mixed but suggest future potential. I used a brand of masking film I’d never tried before, and I found it difficult to cut. Maybe my knife wasn’t as sharp as it should have been, but I found it impossible to slice the film without cutting through the board underneath. Also my experiments suggested that a light spray of water would more than do the trick. Here I think I should have used a bit more.
Try try again.
I couldn’t resist the invitation to add an old Mel Brooks joke to Poe’s text. You’ll find it in the second row starting at the end of the first line.
This is also the first time I’ve done two Poe ghosts in a row. They’re easy to do a row at a time, which means I can draw part of one and then come back to it the next time I have a spare minute (or spare 20 minutes or so, which is how long rows typically take). So even when I don’t have enough free time to do another kind from start to finish, I can keep a Poe ghost going.
“The Pit and the Pendulum” continues.
The experiment here is the inclusion of a few holes, replicating the leaf in the source photo. The biggest one is at the intersection of rows two and three, column three. But there are some others here and there.
Based on some of the ink experiments I did last week, I tried something new: drawing the background complete with two pen angles and no leaf at all (except in the faint pencil sketch below the ink). Then I used a brush to apply water to the ink where the leaf should be.
The result was not what I expected. I thought the water would spread the ink ever so slightly, as it did in last week’s experiments. But the tests were done on sketch paper, which tends to absorb ink. And this ghost was done on mixed media paper, where the ink tends to dry on the surface rather than seeping in. So when I added water, it was like painting directly with the color rather than just spreading it around a little.
I”m not dissatisfied with this. It looks more interesting in person than it does in the photo (I know I say that a lot in this blog, but it’s true). And it suggests avenues for further exploration.
What a mess! This is the most out-of control Copic Ghost I’ve ever done.
Three of the marker colors – B29 Ultramarine, YR24 Pale Sepia and YR61 Spring Orange – were refills. Ultramarine went onto the paper just fine but left a lot of extra ink. So when I started applying the Sepia, it re-liquified the blue and smeared it along the edges.
Which was a birthday present compared to the orange. I must have overfilled the marker, because when I applied nib to paper the ink came gushing out all over the place. The results are clearly visible in the drawing.
Coincidentally enough, the B05 Process Blue marker I used for the lighter background squares ran dry midway through (despite my firm belief that it was relatively new and had barely been used). And of course the B06 Peacock Blue I tried to use as a sub was bone dry, with B14 Light Blue not faring much better.
Looks like I need to order more refills. And be more careful when adding them to the markers.
Here’s a first in the Poe Ghost series: a story – “The Tell Tale Heart” ended neatly at the end of a row.
And then “Annabel Lee” nearly did the same.
Side note: I’ve been using “Crane Quill” and “Summer Night Bonfire” Shikiori inks for most of this series. I like them so much that earlier this week I bought some more colors from the set. I’ll stick with what I’m already using for Poe ghosts, but I’m looking forward to trying the other inks out on other drawings.
Normally I wouldn’t use the same medium and technique twice in a row. But I was curious about some variations. I switched to W&N Blue rather than black, and I used the longer Speedball 513 nib rather than the 512 from last time.
I also wanted to keep practicing with the new pen angle. Still not perfect, but better than last time.
I’m currently reading Arthur Leighton Guptill’s Rendering in Pen and Ink, and I’ve decided to actually do the lessons as I’m going. One of the first things the book covers is how to vary line width by changing the angle of the pen and the pressure on the tip.
Employing some of my new knowledge, I did this whole ghost using a single pen and one color of ink. Though I clearly need additional practice with the unfamiliar pen angle (the darker squares), the new approach has potential.
Here’s a first: a leaf ghost started in one year and finished in another.
I began work on this one shortly after I finished #163. Most ghosts get done in a single session, but pieces for the Poe series can take two or three days to complete. Still, I figured I’d have time to complete it before New Years Eve. Well, things got busy and I’m just now getting around to the final two rows.
