This was one of the sketches I did at my Mom and Dad’s house when I began to draw every day. The vantage point is from another room. I wasn’t quite able to distinguish one form from another at this stage. I think I was concentrating on getting a range of tones, from dark to […]
As I recall, I was trying to create a uniform tonal value with dots of sepia ink. Inconsistent sizes of dots and uneven spacing were the variables that, with more skill, I could have created an even tone across the page. However, this was not any easy task and I did not make it happen. […]
Back in 2010, I used to practice my pen technique every several pages. Here I tried different ink shading techniques to get uniform tonal values. I think the dark patch I scribbled in atop the face’s left eye was intended to hide it. I recall not being too thrilled with that eye as it was. […]
Normally I don’t care for ‘checkerboard’ cross hatching. But in this case it works for the large background area. The bottom of the desk is a darker tone, accomplished by a third cross-hatching line. I like the range of tonal values in this drawing.
One thing glares out at me as I revisit this sketch: the very black black of the stove and the hood over the stove. It is a solid black, when it should have been a cross-hatched tone darker than the sides of the cabinets. Otherwise, this would have been a really good nostalgic piece.
I was practicing the use of line and also distancing between lines, for shading.
Pencil sketching allows a method of shading not available to pen and ink. It involves the use of fingers and a smearing motion. Some call it ‘smudging’. Below is an example.
Painters sometimes paint black and white tonal studies. They make a strip starting with black paint, adding white until they achieve a smooth gradient from the blackest black to the whitest white. I did the same below with pen and ink, making a gradient of dense to sparse ink marks. This tonal gradient is a […]
I captured the top and bottom of a cloud bank. I love the intermediate tones of gray within the mass of clouds.
