History

Sketching with Iron Gall Ink and Watercolor

Long before we had metal dip pens, artists drew with reed pens and with quills cut from the pinion feathers of a swan, turkey, or goose. If you look at the ink sketches of artists such as Rembrandt or DaVinci, you will see some very common characteristics. The ink lines vary in width – narrow, wide. Often the ink is brown, and so those not in the know think that brown ink was a thing way back when. In reality, it is the degradation of iron gall ink (aka oak gall ink) through time. When initially laid down, it was black. With time, it turns brown, and with a lot of time and depending on its degree of acidity, the iron gall ink can destroy the paper and drawing.

Over the past week, I have been playing with iron gall ink and a quill pen I cut from a turkey feather. I have some homemade iron gall ink nearly done – come Thursday, it will be ostensibly ready to use. Today, because I am finally at a point where I have time to play, I drew with iron gall ink and my quill, and then applied watercolors. The ink took its sweet time drying, and I didn’t blow dry it, but let it air dry or blotted it to see what would happen. As it is a damp day, it took awhile. Anyway, the following three pictures were first done with the ink, dried, and then painted in with watercolor. If you look at the pen strokes, you will see variations. I’ve never drawn with a quill before, so it was a new experience, one quite different than with a dip pen or fountain pen.

The kumquats were the very first drawings I did with the quill and ink. I had to really think about textures. You see, when you use iron gall ink, it begins as a light grey, but as it is exposed to the air, it becomes darker and darker until it is black. This made values a challenge!

Here, the ink in the picture was not quite dry, and some bled into the watercolors as I lay them down.

For the melons, the ink was taking forever to dry! I decided to see what would happen if I blotted the ink. The result was smudges, which you can see throughout the picture.

This final set was done with a sketchy watercolor. No thought was really given to composition or to color as I wanted to use the ink to express outlines, shapes, and shadows.

Altogether, this was a lot of fun, and for me there is a potential I hadn’t really thought about in getting a sense of history by using historical tools – quills, iron gall ink – that were once the best technology had to offer. I wonder what Rembrandt and DaVinci would think about paints in a tube, rather than the task of purchasing, grinding, and creating their own paints . . . perhaps they made their own quills and inks, too.

Perspective in Retrospect

I have no head for heights, and just watching this video has made me jump a number of times! Despite that, I have always loved this picture because of the simple fact I could never even think of something as working up so high. There is something so awesome about these men . . . and the photographers as well.

Tourist Stop: Bodie, California

For what it’s worth, Josh and I went up Highway 395 to see what the Eastern Sierras has to hold. I’ve never been up there.

We decided to visit Bodie, the old silver-mining ghost town in the high desert of eastern California. It was amazing – not so much that it was a ghost town, but that at one point, it wasn’t a ghost town. The road in is about 13 miles long, the first 10 of which have been recently blacktopped, but the last 3 of which are gravel and washboard. We were there under a noonday sun.

Historically, about 5% of the original buildings remain, many of which had been destroyed by a fire sometime ago (1920s??). While it is rather desolate and barren, visiting and learning a bit of its history, you are amazed to see the civilization of an age past come to life.

Click on the images below for the slideshow!

I’m hiding in here somewhere . . .

July 4th

Getting older, one can become more cynical, more realistic, more idealistic, more involved, more aloof. Time is ticking away. At the same time, one gets a better sense of perspective and history because there is a definite pattern of repetition in life. Personal history is one long narrative. Family history blends in with local and national history, which in turn leads to world history. Someday we may have a sense of a history across the cosmos, as in, hey, my parents colonized Mars in 2892!

I am not too happy with the increasing political polarization in today’s politics, nor the corruption, nor the increasing gap between the haves and have-nots. I dislike the wars we are fighting. I dislike the search for a scapegoat, namely the illegal immigrant, and laws being drafted making it okay to target certain populations. On the other hand, I can say what I think, live in a country which is peaceable in many ways and is politically stable, and am not forced to conform to a state idea of what is acceptable religion and what is not.

Days which celebrate a country’s history need to be days of reflection of its people – for the country’s ideals and visions, as well as a concern for what is best for all in the country, not just a few. Internationally, we try to make things work, just as we do on a local level, or within our families.

Is the U.S.A. perfect? Hardly. Neither is the rest of the world. Countries around the world are filled with humans who have history, loyalty, aesthetics, political ideas, conflict, needs, morals, religion. National holidays, such as July 4th, celebrate our own uniqueness, but need to also be filled with an appreciation for the rest of the world, and our part and place in it. We are not the only ones on the planet. We need to share, and do it responsibly.

Yes, this is rather giddy-eyed idealism, but I prefer to look at life this way. Granted, I am not starving, I am not unemployed, nor am I living in a country which is in the throes of revolution or isolated and surrounded by enemies. I have the luxury of such thoughts and such hopes because I am not concerned about my next meal or if I will be attacked on the way to the well. I am fortunate, more so than many in my own country or elsewhere in the world.

What, then, is my responsibility as a citizen, as a human, as a member of the planet?