Playing with Lines ~ Ladies on a Park Bench

The line portion of my Ladies on a Park Bench(my working title) is complete. I drew and re-drew these ladies so many times I hope I haven't lost that wonderful sense of spontaneity the original ball point pen sketches possessed. I went over the entire drawing with a 05 Micron pen and the finished drawing is approx. 14" x 9". There's a few glitches in some of the perspective( one of my weaker points)but overall I'm happy with the results. I now have my master drawing which I can enlarge, reduce, add background (or not) and tweak however I wish. I plan to try a few variations with different mediums, styles, etc. using my drawing to see what works and what doesn't.

Playing with Lines ~ continued

After umpteen tries I think I've hit the mark with my center subject. I created a little panorama to see how well they relate to each other. It works for me!

When rendering human facial expressions I'm certainly in unfamiliar waters. In fact anything gestural human-wise is new to me when translating it to paper. Fortunately being a human myself I have a handy model that works for cheap...me. For some reason I have had a devil of a time producing a satisfactory lady for the center of this comp. I think I've finally found her, though. I've also set a challenge for myself. I will not look at any reference photos while I put this one together. I want to see if I can complete this strictly from my own imagination, common sense and whatever else I can muster.

Playing with Lines

Don't you love the friend that enjoys talking in your ear while you are engrossed in a good book? I know...me too!

Here one gal is reading her paperback book and is in the habit of rolling half of the book while reading the pages on the other half. I'm not sure who I've seen do this but as I was drawing it popped into my head so I went with it.

I confess...I don't do much sketching. I don't even own a sketch book. However I realized how much I enjoyed doing the nude in my previous post. All done very impromptu and without a reference I somehow managed to keep her in proportion and her position make sense. I kinda surprised myself actually. I began doodling today with a ballpoint pen all the while trying to recall three older ladies I saw sharing a park bench this past summer. They looked like they could've been sisters and at the time I so wished I'd had my camera with me. I did try to recreate them in a line drawing but the middle sister turned out looking a bit like Marilyn Manson so I cut her out of the picture. Can't win em all, I guess and two outta three ain't bad. Seriously, I do plan to pursue this type of line drawing with my walnut ink and see where it leads me.

Black Walnut Nude

I've never done figure work, especially a nude but tonight I was in the mood to break out and see what I could create. This is my result and I like it! Done from imagination, the majority of the painting is walnut ink, the black outline is Inktense pencil and the color is SMi soft pastel.

Homemade Black Walnut Ink ~ Completed

To give an idea of the color I've used my ink on a scrap of 140# watercolor paper to achieve an aged effect by toning the paper and applying a heavier wash around the deckle edge. I'm very happy with the results and find this ink very easy to work with. I did a small still life of an acorn and oak leaf last night but it was too rushed so I plan to re-do it before posting.

The finished ink waiting for a drop or two of clove oil to help preserve it. I will also have to cover the jars to block out any light or replace with tinted glass containers. Walnut ink should be protected from direct light.

I decided to go with coffee filters to strain my ink. I felt the filters would do the best job removing any unwanted sediment. Once the liquid was strained from the husks it still contained a lot of 'sludge' so I left it to drain all night to get every bit of useable ink possible.

Mold forming on the top of the ink. It didn't show up until 3 weeks into the steeping process and was easily removed.
***

My ink is finally ready for it's debut. I let it steep for a little over a month, scraping mold from only one jar twice. The second jar of ink did not produce any mold at all. I noticed no foul smell during the process from either jar. The ink has maintained it's original earthy aroma which is ok by me and the resulting ink is a beautiful warm shade of sepia.

After separating the husks from the liquid I wound up with barely two cups of finished ink. My steeping jars held slightly less than a quart each and the husks took up half the space in each jar to give a rough idea of what amount of ink can be expected. In hindsight I wish I had put the removed husks in cheesecloth and wrung out more liquid. Instead I arranged them on newspaper and paper towel to drain, then double bagged them in ziploc baggies and put them in the freezer for storage. I hope to thaw them at a later date and see if I can make more ink using these same husks.