The Fall workshop season of classes in my studio in Oracle is chugging along. I’m amazed and impressed by the results by students in the Ink Drawing workshop that happened awhile ago.
We started off by dipping long sticks (ordinary skinny tree branches) in ink and drawing on large sheets of paper on the floor. It’s a great way to loosen up and get over being nervous about the end result. And you can get wonderful and graceful lines from this exercise. After that came experimenting with a variety of other tools–from quills (feathers), to quill (metal tip) pens, Sharpies, cartridge pens to ball point pens, brushes and more.
The next step was to do a series of value charts. Sounds dreadful, looks difficult, but is actually quite fun.
After that were line drawings of cups using a brush.
So free, such beautiful lines!
In between lots of other experiments were drawings of peppers using a pen and India ink. More lovely lines and the beginning of some washes (the shadowed areas of the drawings).
More washes, different student. It always amazes me to see how the same still-life is completely differently handled by each individual. And it puzzles me why people worry about developing a style of their own, because it seems like a unique style is always already there.
On to pineapples. For comparison, check back to the pencil and charcoal pineapple drawing blog post from several weeks ago! Yes, I like to use pineapples in workshops. They have such a great texture. And are yummy to eat after the workshop is over.
Another example–
And here’s an overview of some of the drawings accomplished by one participant during this 2-day, 4-hour-each-day workshop.
Yeah, them! Yeah, me! Get in on the action, go to my workshop page and sign up for a class today!