Loose Ink with with Fude Pen

Day Twenty-Nine of Sketching People

Continuing with day Twenty-Nine of my #Kick365 sketching challenge to draw people in ink and watercolour. Today was about not liking my first pass at the challenges I attempted, and having another go. I wanted an opportunity to improve my results, and end the challenge on a positive note.

10 Minute Tuesday with Doug Jackson

I hopped over to YouTube today to do Doug Jackson’s 10 Minute Tuesday people sketch. The photo was of two people under umbrellas with the backs to us.

This week’s challenge was meant to be all about looseness, spontaneity, and letting the ink flow. I didn’t get that memo before I started the challenge!, and my 9 minute sketch with my Uni-ball Eye Micro pen, and watercolour added, was pretty stiff and uninspiring. I also didn’t plan out the height of the figures on the page, and ended up cutting off their feet.

Line Weight Variety and Broken Lines

After watching Doug’s sketch video I realised how exciting and expressive his ink lines were (I think he was using a dip pen), and it was the line weight variety that really added that extra level of interest to the sketch.

It’s not possible to get line variety with the Uni-ball Eye pen I used, so time to switch it up for a second attempt.

I did a quick and loose 3 minute sketch of both pairs of jeans in an expressive style with my Sailor Fude pen, and added a bit of tonal shading with my pale grey Tombow brush pen. I sketched just a little bit more than their jeans, and kept sketching to the top of the page.

I like the variety in the line weight, and also the broken and orphan lines (those lines sticking out on the left leg of the figure on the right. These weren’t intentional, they’re just a result of what happens when you sketch quickly and loosely. These are what Bob Ross would call – happy accidents.

Motto the Story: Consider the pen you're using when you sketch. If you're going for loose and expressive lines with pronounced line weight variation, use a pen that can achieve that variety.

Rotating my use of Pens

I’ve become a little lazy recently, relying heavily on my Staedtler pigment lines 0.05, and my Uni-ball eye pen. But I’m going to encourage myself to vary my use of pens up – I have enough of them!

I don’t want to get so rigid that I assign a pen to a day (e.g. Monday fine liner, Tuesday flex nib, Wednesday Fude, Thursday glass pen, etc.), but I need to be mindful of rotating my pens throughout the week.

Maybe an approach like – I can’t use the same pen for more than three days in a row – would be a flexible, but encouraging, approach.

Drawing Earthsworld Challenge

I did this uninspiring female portrait from the Drawing Earthsworld Challenge from Facebook. It was the first sketch of the day, and it wasn’t weird or chunky enough to really grab my attention. Even though I wasn’t feeling it, I had two attempts at sketching it anyway. I don’t know why, but I went quite large on an A6 page.

I messed up the perspective (and the nose) on the first attempt, so had another go. I messed up the nose again.

I decided to paint some bright backgrounds to detract from the portraits, and used the opposite colours to the shirt. I like this play with colours, but these bright backgrounds weren’t enough to save the portraits!

I had two more attempts at sketching just the nose. The first one I did with hatching, and the second one I sketched in pencil with some shading. I’m glad I had another go at sketching this nose. I really paid attention to the shapes and shading, and was happy with both of these nose-attempts.

Motto the Story: If a source subject or image doesn't inspire you, you're probably not got to create a believable portrait. I've realised, for me, I have to be inspired to sketch. There has to be something about my subject that intrigues or inspires me, for example, a shape, a colour, posture. Without that motivation, I'll struggle to create a believable subject. 

I wasn’t happy with my first attempts today, and usually I’d just walk away from the challenge. Yep! Give up.

But because this 365 day art challenge is all about continuous improvement, I knew I had to attempt both of today’s challenges again, and figure out a way to improve on my dismal first attempt. There’s still no masterpieces in today’s work, but I did learn a couple of valuable lessons.

So in my mind – today was still a win.