I have had a roll of Rollei 25 RPX in the Olympus Trip 35 for over a year. Finally finished it up. At iso 25, this film requires bright light along with a steady hand. A lot of the time I had neither. Out of a roll of 36, maybe 5-7 are any good. I think this one is one of my favorites – it has people in it! Most of my pictures do not – so this is a rare occasion on this end!
Beds of dried, caked and cracked mud are fascinating. Footprints in them are even better, or the mysterious sliding rocks found in Death Valley. I looked at a lot of pictures of mud flats, and one thing I noticed were curves and angles as well as the way light bounces off their slightly uneven surfaces.
Here I used ink and water, specifically Private Reserve’s Copper Burst. I have never considered using fountain pen ink as a painting medium, but it’s opened up my eye to its potential.
I refilled a pen with some Private Reserve Copper ink, a water soluble ink, to see how it works as a sketching ink. The pen is an Aurora with a medium nib, one which I like to use when I need a broader line. For some reason, maybe it’s just me, but the pen is not writing quite like it did with a different ink. (Hey, maybe it’s the ink!) The idea is to see how well the ink blends into the watercolors or affects the colors themselves.
From what I can see, it just merges into the paint without polluting the clarity of the colors. If you look at the trees on the left, you will see a lot of lines representing the directional flow of the bark. In other areas, I used the pen to outline white spots or fallen leaves. In the background, you can see the outlines of the tree trunks.
Besides just playing with ink, I am trying to use simpler swaths of color in my painting to convey a sense of depth. I struggle with depth – and maybe it is because I don’t have any depth perception – and too often I think my paintings are rather flat in appearance. Luckily, there are “rules” out there to help me, such a lighter colors in the distance, which I do see. I just don’t have a sense of dimension.
I wonder how many people really do have eyesight problems – just recently I read that Da Vinci may have eye issues, having one eye which turned outward. Degas, too. Others? Interesting thought.
As we move into winter, I think of the places I lived when I was a kid, where 6 feet of snow was a “mild” winter. Today, the low was about 56 F, and the high about 78 F. Very different – and as an adult, I admit to preferring a lack of snow to an abundance! Nonetheless, the seasonal changes are apparent here, just more subtle – the shift in light, the change in the blue. Even the air smells different.
Working with Inktober, I can feel a shift in how I am approaching drawing, and painting. I am simplifying but being more specific about the brush or pen size I choose and how to deploy a line or a brush stroke. While there is a lot to be desired here – such as a sense of architectural reality and non-topsy-turvey houses – I had a lot of fun looking at areas of color as a suggestion, not a reality, as a plane rather than the detail I normally hone in on.
Maybe there is some hope after all!
Hopefully, back on track with Inktober! I’m not even going to try to do the ones I missed.
This is a combination of ink and Inktense pencils, which I haven’t really tried to any degree. I started out with just a simple ink drawing, then I used the pencils, laying down pigment with different amounts – light and dark – to see how it would work to create tones. It did a pretty good job, I think. Certainly something to continue to play with.
Below is the ink drawing followed by the pre-wetted Inktense pencils.
Ink, Yarn & Beer 