Category / pen and ink

by Leonie Andrews

Help wanted …

Is it possible to be ‘too respectful’ to a photograph.  I’m throwing this one open to the collective brains trust!

At the end of my 5th day of Inktober I am already questioning my approach to the photos I’m using as a source material.

I’ll show you today’s drawings/sketches to demonstrate what I mean.

My first sketch today, sticking pretty close to the original photo.

Having reached an end point with that first sketch, the outcome of which I wasn’t completely excited about, I decided to draw a way looser sketch of myself.

Self portrait

After the self-portrait I decided to go back to my previous subject and try to loosen it up. The second version now bears less of a resemblance to the original photo. However, I probably rushed this a bit too much. I would still like to see some resemblance to the source material, but I am feeling that this is probably more ‘authentic to my style’ than the first version.

Am I just copping out with a return to my preferred style? Can you suggest ways of approaching the sketches without becoming  consumed by producing ‘respctful’ likenesses?

The second sketch from the photo. I probably rushed it a bit.
The three sketches in order of drawing

Your thoughts on this matter,whatever they are, would be appreciated.

by Leonie Andrews

Day by day, sort of

I’ll spare you the daily photo dump of Inktober drawings. I mentioned previously that I’m drawing from photographs of artists. For each artist I have found several photos, where possible over different times of their lives – although some lives were not long at all.

First up is Lee Krasner. These photos are from the book Lee Krasner, Living Colour, Ed. Eleanor Nairne, Thames and Hudson, 2019. It’s a catalogue for the exhibition of the same name. Krasner has such a bold look, with her striking dark hair, that I found it easy to see how that might be translated into a graphic pen and ink drawing.

Day 1, I drew from an early photo of Krasner , so bold a pose and her eyes blocked out by sunglasses.

A young Lee Krasner c. 1938, Photographer unknown.

I ended up doing 4 drawings of Krasner, because I’m playing a lot with different approaches.

Day 2, I used two different approaches.  The first was all line work with blue and sepia ink. The second with a range of inks all applied by brush. As someone who loves watercolour the 2nd approach is the one  feel most comfortable with.

Day 2, two approaches from the same source photo taken in 1949 by Arnold Newman

For Day 3, I decided to combine line and wash, given how Irving Penn has photographed Kranser’s face surrounded by the upturned collar of her coat. I wanted to capture the dramatic sweep of the collar but to also suggest it’s textured lining.

Lee Krasner, 1972, photographer Irving Penn.
by Leonie Andrews

Walks, Cafes etc

We have been doing a lot of walking since the pandemic started, originally prompted by restricted exercise periods for months at a time. Now walking is a regular activity and each week we try and do a slightly longer walk. We often break this up with a coffee, in our Thermos, or at one of the pop-up coffee carts that seem to be proliferating along popular walking tracks around the city.

Covered with a nice paperbag from a local bookshop

I hate carrying too much on these walks so I now carry this home made 10×14 cm sketchbook made of paper offcuts. Here are some of my recent sketches.

The sketches are adding up!
Late afternoon around Lake Tuggeranong
Coffee at the pop-up coffee cart Mt Taylor. In reality the Golden Retreiver wasn’t quite that long in the body!😄
A Thermos of coffee when we walked around the base of Mt Taylor
Patrons at the local coffee shop, a stop on our walk around Lake Tuggeranong
Bonus Black Swans with an almost fully grown cygnet.
by Leonie Andrews

Mark making with Monica

After a critical examination of my early attempts at calligraphy, my Japanese homestay ‘mother’ was able to say that the ‘tail’ of one my my kanji was ‘quite good’. I think at that point I decided that it was unlikely I would ever take up the formal discipline of calligraphy. And yet I still remain attracted to the calligraphic mark.

I hoped that I might somehow jump the gap to achieving wonderful marks, without the hard work underpinning formal training. So when artist and calligrapher Monica Dengo‘s current online course A Bridge between Drawing and Writing, floated past me on a social media platform I saw an opportunity to develop my skills in another way.

We started with some familiar drawing techniques, such as drawing without looking at the page.

Then we worked through a series of exercises to explore the possibilities of written forms.

Playing with letter forms.

We combined these two sets of marks in more finished works.

Adding colour boosted the energy of the work.

The final stage of the workshop was to display our finished pieces in a simple book structure, that allowed various combinations of work to be displayed.

Working on compostional combinations across my book.

Monica provided clear outlines and supporting material for the workshop. The 3 × 2 hour sessions flew by and participants were also offered a feedback session on their work after the class finished.

Three pages in my book.

I really feel that this class has opened up new possibilities for my work. I can certainly recommend Monica’s classes to anyone interested in exploring text and mark making.

Monica has told me that she will be running another online class, with times suitable for people in Australia, New Zealand and Asia, from 4-7 June. Please see Monica’s website or contact her for full details. Monica also presents online classes with times suitable for people in Europe and America.

You can see Monica’s work on her Instagram account @monica_dengo

by Leonie Andrews

Seredipitous conjunctions

I always enjoy Claudia McGill’s poems for their quirky nature, none more so than her ‘Little Vines’, which she has been propagating for a number of years.

This one from her recent post reminded me, of one of my all time favourite cartoons by Clement. *

4338.
Simpering clams, you said?
No, simmering clams.
Oh. I did wonder how you could tell.

* I think this cartoon dates from the early 1990’s. I have kept it in my recipe book since I cut it out from the newspaper.