Learning To Draw With Pen & Ink

[candidvn]

http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3824/9471627520_34efe71a55_z.jpg

 

Another sketch during the lunch time. I will apply some watercolors

[candidvn]

http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3819/9472111614_e4f50d63b1.jpg

[Sailor Kenshin]

Vibrant and colorful!

[cybaea]

Very nicely done, @candidvn!

[Namru]

20 minute phone call, much about nothing...

http://i164.photobucket.com/albums/u11/davidfielding3832/IMAG0222_1.jpg

 

Dinosaur, playing videogames... Wearing a fez. Slow day.

Edited August 9, 2013 by Namru

[Sailor Kenshin]

Gotta love slow days.

[muldi]

Hi all, I've been ill and not able to do much, but it makes me feel better just to look at all the posts. Each one is wonderful in its own way. What a talented group! Dinosaur makes me smile, too! Hope to be posting again before too long....

[candidvn]

Thank you eveyone, let's keep updated this topic.

 

@muldi: I hope you will get better soon.

 

Yesterday, I have a cup of coffee in a tiny cafe which next to a restaurant. That restaurant they serve a Vietnamese noodle soup called Phở.

You can google it.

 

https://www.google.com.vn/search?q=phở&client=safari&hl=en&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ei=5hwHUrnfJ4aPiAe82ICgBA&ved=0CAkQ_AUoAA&biw=1024&bih=672

 

Some people are trying to make it become a kind of fast food but the local people like to eat Phở in the local réstaurant.

 

While seeing the chief cook Pho in the huge pots on the pavemebt I drawed a quick sketch and add some water color.

 

http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3682/9484573100_c2b601627d.jpg

[candidvn]

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7392/9515506240_133a4d9622_z.jpg

 

 

Hello everyone! Another update for our topic.

 

Yesterday I took my children to the cinema to watch the cartoon movie of Smurf 2. While waiting in the waiting room I saw people are being taken photo with the mascots of Monster University film. I made a quick sketch of them.

[Sailor Kenshin]

Cute! Love the colors and expressions.

[inkstainedruth]

Everyone who want to learn to draw needs to read this book:

 

http://tinyurl.com/lklwzae

 

Initially pretty wordy about the scientific aspect, but gets to the meat of drawing eventually. A must read.

 

I have the original version of this book, but haven't read it. I was wondering how different this edition was, since I haven't seen it. I also recently picked up a used copy of the DotRSoftB Workbook just for fun at a local Half Price Books, although I haven't had time to really peruse it.

When my husband and I were in Spokane last week, one of the friends we were staying with took us to Auntie's, a lovely big independent bookstore. They had a copy of the Frank Lohan book _Pen & Ink Sketching_ that was mentioned by someone earlier in this thread, but when I looked at it I realized that it wasn't going to be a whole lot of use to me. Maybe for someone else, but I don't like the idea of copying some guy's artwork. I do enough of that (more or less) as is (volunteer work for an educational non-for-profit, but those are all inked over pencil sketches).

I did do some sketching on the trip though (mostly at my brother in law's house). I had picked up one of the little Ecosystems sketchbooks from Barnes & Noble shortly before the trip, because it was 30% off at the time (making it cheaper by a fair amount than a same-sized Leuchtturm1917 at a local art store). I will try to get the better ones scanned in soon (who knows -- I might also upload the not so good ones as well: I have a degree in Art so hopefully my bad sketches will inspire people by making them say "Hey, I can draw as well as that!").

I still have gobs of photos from the trip, the wedding, and DCSS to download from my camera as well, though -- but if I don't get them posted by the end of the weekend, someone please ping me to remind me. Thanks in advance.

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

[candidvn]

inkstainedruth

 

It seem that you forgot to upload.

[notbob]

I have the original version of this book, but haven't read it. I was wondering how different this edition was,.....

 

heh.... I also read the original, and also didn't follow through.

 

Basically, the newer edition adds more in-depth technical detail as to how and why the brain is two separate entities and why the two are different and how to utilize the artsy-fartsy right side. Many have criticized the newer content as too dry and off-topic. I found it all rather fascinating. This is not a how-to drawing instruction book, but a treatise on how to deliberately release the analytical left side brain and engage the creative right side brain. Lessons are designed to trigger right brain activity, so one can use the right brain for its intended purpose. By tricking one's brain to abandon left brain dominance, the right brain can be set in motion. Exercises like drawing a picture upside down or drawing the spaces around a chair instead of the chair itself tend to baffle the pre-conceived orderly left brain, so it literally gives up trying and allows the original creative right brain to have a go.

 

It's an amazing premise and I believe it to actually work. One of my goals is to be able to sketch a decent pencil portrait. I'm still such a bad artist that most of my efforts look very amateurish, but on one occasion, I really wanted to succeed so I really concentrated and focused. I literally "got into it" and I believe I actually went all right brainy and the resulting drawing astonished me. I'm not saying I suddenly turned into Rembrandt for an hour, but the finished drawing was definitely far above what I thought myself capable of.

 

Drawing and painting and art in general can all be learned. As with almost everything, there is no substitute for practice. But, by unleashing the right brain --letting it join the party, so to speak-- is very rewarding and I truly believe this book can help one achieve that goal. I recommend it highly.

[InvisibleMan]

My first (and probably last!) pen cartoon. Sorry in advance

 

http://www.pensbylyleross.com/uploads/1/2/6/0/12608908/1377735624.png

[Sailor Kenshin]

I like it! Especially the fact that the text is in a different ink!

[inkstainedruth]

inkstainedruth

 

It seem that you forgot to upload.

Yes, for some reason I couldn't find this thread again and then the weekend was kinda crazed. Spent all evening Friday making marzipan oranges (because I can crank them out quickly). Saturday I think I got overheated in the afternoon getting not *nearly* as much spinning done as it felt like (there's an awful lot of roving left -- even after nearly filling one bobbin -- then spent Saturday night watching a movie at a friend's house after doing Chinese takeout (by the time we got the food and got to the house, I was almost too tired to eat ). Sunday, I kinda went "fump"... didn't get up till the afternoon, and then rushed around trying to get at least *some* of the laundry done. Which finally got done yesterday (Monday they were flushing water lines in my neighborhood).

I've had trouble most of this week trying to get back onto a more normal sleep cycle and generally concentrating on much of anything: when I tried to do productive stuff (doing some proofreading for a friend for some stuff that was getting posted online) I couldn't figure out which letter she needed to have done and her response to my query was cryptic at best and when I tried to get a clarification got told that I'd missed the deadline for when she needed the work to be done.

Let me see about at least getting the scanned drawings uploaded. Right now. Even if they don't actually get posted till romorrow (it's after 12:30 AM here at the moment). Sadly, they are all the drawings I have at the moment. I need to spend some time actually digging those two books out and start reading them and then doing the exercises.....

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

[inkstainedruth]

Okay then. These first two are literally from looking out the plane window on the trip out (two different seats on different legs of the flight to Seattle):

https://www.fountainpennetwork.com/forum/uploads/imgs/fpn_1377750606__artwork_1_cropped_image.jpg

https://www.fountainpennetwork.com/forum/uploads/imgs/fpn_1377750705__artwork_1_cropped_image.jpg

They're not all that great, because it was too hard to try to get clean straight lines (sans ruling). Plus I'm totally out of practice....

The rest tomorrow (I'm seriously having trouble staying awake at this point). But I wanted folks to see the bad drawings -- if nothing else, to say "Hey, she studied art and I could do at *least* as good a job...."

I'm a lot happier with some of the later ones.

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

[inkstainedruth]

Well, it's now a more civilized human hour.... [mid-late morning on August 29]. So here are the rest of the drawings from the Seattle trip.

This first one is of a tree in my brother-in-law's front yard. It had fallen over, but was still growing, and I just loved the lines -- made me think of bonsai on a grand scale (so it was just positively *begging* to be drawn. Plus the idea of trying to do wheelbarrow races in a really nice dress -- especially when it was cold and overcast -- was not remotely appealing....

https://www.fountainpennetwork.com/forum/uploads/imgs/fpn_1377750819__artwork_3_cropped_image.jpg

I took photos of the tree too, but apparently didn't transfer any of them from the desktop computer -- I was only porting the ones that hadn't been emailed to my mother-in-law (the ones I took in Spokane, and the photos from DCSS; plus the ones my husband took of me in front of the P-51 Mustang at the Museum of Flight in Seattle so I could post them at some point).

This next one is looking across the field on the lower part of my brother-in-law's yard at the trees along the edge of the clearing; this was a case of not slavishly including *everything* (I saw no reason to put in the portajohn and handwashing station he had set up for the folks camping for the wedding... ). Not entirely thrilled with the result -- there was too much of everything being the same color and hard to differentiate the different greens (I think this would have been better as a pastel drawing or a watercolor) -- but I *am* happy with the one little evergreen that was planted in front of the clearing.

https://www.fountainpennetwork.com/forum/uploads/imgs/fpn_1377750928__artwork_4_cropped_image.jpg

The next couple of drawings were done the day after the wedding, and were basically still life sketches of some of the floral arrangements: the wedding, being really laid back, and sort of grafted onto a picnic, was kind of of home-made/home-grown, with mason jars for vases and the flowers (including Sara's bouquet) mostly coming out of the gardens her dad and step-mom have been putting in). NE of Seattle is zone 8, so Kat has planted lots of gladioli and dahlias (and doesn't have to dig them up at the end of the season). Sara's other aunt (one of my husband's other sisters-in-law) made the arrangements and the bouquet up the morning of the wedding.

https://www.fountainpennetwork.com/forum/uploads/imgs/fpn_1377787831__artwork_5_cropped_image.jpg

https://www.fountainpennetwork.com/forum/uploads/imgs/fpn_1377751038__artwork_6_cropped_image.jpg

The last sketch was from the final morning, before driving to Spokane. It's just some potted plants growing from the balcony over the kitchen, but I liked the sculptural qualities of the larger leaves in particular, especially as they draped over the balcony wall. Although, in retrospect, maybe I really should have drawn the wall sections themselves with a straight edge....

https://www.fountainpennetwork.com/forum/uploads/imgs/fpn_1377751109__artwork_7_cropped_image.jpg

Feel free to critique these. I'm pretty thick-skinned (and am probably my own worst critic anyway). Plus, I know that I was really out of practice (maybe 30 years' worth!). And yes, these were done directly with the pen -- no pencil work beforehand, like the stuff I do as a heraldic artist in the SCA (and no whiteout, either... ). Pen was a Rotring Artpen with an EF nib (thanks again to FPN's own Uncle Red, who decided that he likes to write with broad stubs); ink was Pen&Ink non-shellac formula India ink. Not really what I would think of as India ink -- not black enough, IMO -- but FP safe, and the not-so-black actually makes for a nice character to the drawings (kinda the same way the sort of greyish tone I got with Koh-i-Noor ink in my Rapidographs made for a nice softness of line).

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

[Sailor Kenshin]

I like the fallen tree....lotta character.

[muldi]

I like the fallen tree too. But I also like the delicacy of the flower still lifes and 'jars'.

 

You have a nice touch with the Rotring EF Artpen. I love drawing with mine too.