I sit here writing up this exercise feeling like I've been ten rounds in the ring with a heavyweight boxer! It's really beaten me up! In this exercise, the brief was to take an image, and then recreate that image three times: once in ink with pens, one in ink with brushes, and lastly in colour with no ink at all.
"contain people, objects and buildings, and a good amount of detail"
The image itself needed to "contain people, objects and buildings, and a good amount of detail. Having read ahead to get an understanding of the exercises I would be doing, I knew that I had this exercise coming up. The image could be taken from my swipe file, a previous drawing or a personal photo. So, on my limited forays outside during lockdown, I had been taking photos which hopefully captured these things so I could use them for the exercise.
We went out as a family to the local park during the recent snowstorms, and there were other families there enjoying the snow day. I noticed a particular family building snowmen with their dog and felt that it could be a good option, so I took a few quick photos. When it came to doing this exercise, I looked at photos in my collection to look for different possibilities and ended up choosing one of the photos from the snow day - it had all the right ingredients and an overall composition I really liked.
With my reference image selected, the next part of the exercise was to create a pencil drawing of the image. I had recently invested in a lightbox specifically for this exercise (and to give me more options when making finals from rough illustrations). I printed out the photo at A3, placed it on the lightbox, and then chose an A3 sheet of Bristol paper to go on top. Using the lightbox I then traced the image's content - I focused on contours more than anything, and avoided adding shading at this stage.
It was at this point when I realised that I had really made my life difficult by selecting a snow scene!
Image 1 - Ink with Pens
With the pencils completed, I diverged from the suggested approach in the exercise. I knew how I tend to use ink and watercolour (my intended medium for the third image) so copying onto printer paper wasn't going to work! Instead, I scanned in the pencils so that I could upload them to this log, and then got to work on the first image, using UniPin fineliners.
I methodically moved around the paper, with the photo in view to remind myself of the reference and the details, shapes and textures that I could recreate. I don't tend to do a lot of fineliner work, so I used it as an opportunity to experiment with different mark-making to create different values and textures. I found the pen work very tiring at this scale, and over time my hand started to cramp. Despite this, I found a pleasant meditative focus when using this medium.
What I particularly enjoyed was the problem-solving as I moved across the image - working out how best to create the right effects and textures. I used finer nibs in the background and progressively wider nibs as I moved towards the foreground to help give a sense of depth and separate the planes. When I got to certain areas like the sky and the bandstand, I was presented with certain challenges in properly rendering the image. As I was using pens, I realised that I was not limited to just black. So I used a grey fineliner and a while Gelly Roll rollerball pen. This allowed me to both stipple the sky to create an overall different value to the snowy ground and then used the white pen over a dark background to re-draw the diamond-patterned railings.
Image 2 - Ink with brushes
Now I had to do my second image, and I had drawn straight on top of my original pencils. Fear not! I didn't need to re-do the pencils again (phew!). As I had scanned my original pencils, I went into my image editor and made the pencil lines distinct and dark, and then printed them off again at A3.
I did this so that I could use the pencils on the lightbox. Placing another sheet of Bristol paper on top, I decided that rather than pencil on top first, I would ink directly onto the paper to save some time; using the pencils below to guide my efforts.
Rather than use brushes and ink separately, I decided to use two Japanese ink brush pens - one black and one grey. For the sky this time I used the black ink and then used a brush with water to create an ink wash across the whole sky to lower the overall value.
Again, I moved across the image, trying to work methodically from left to right so as to try and avoid any ink smudges. To start with, the lines seemed fairly familiar from other times that I have tried to ink with a brush. Hatching seemed a lot harder this time, and whilst I was able to generally achieve fine lines, I found hatching lines too thick. Doing people that small was also really hard using a brush.
The really exciting stuff came when I got to the larger trees. I switched to an old brush, and used it in combinations of dry swipes and stipples to create texture in the foliage. I also used a fan brush to create the conifer in the right-hand background. Overall, it worked quite well and I was able to get a better sense of shape and movement in the trees. However, by the end of it, I thought that I had obscured too much of the snow on the larger trees. Luckily, I had some white acrylic ink, so I used that to add snow back onto the tops and tips of the foliage. I also used the brush to lightly splatter white ink over that area to help add some energy to the image.
Image 3 - Colour with no ink!
So far my favourite had been my first image, as I felt it had been surprisingly successful. So by image three, I was feeling more than a little tired and bored! Also, I was feeling quite daunted by the brief's direction to "Try to make your palette as varied as possible." Given my chosen subject matter, I realised that I had really made life hard for myself!
I had decided to use watercolours to add the colour, so I recreated the previous technique, but this time I used some a3 hot-pressed watercolour paper. I started this time not by delving straight into the colour, but by using masking fluid to protect all the sections above the ground that would have snow. I intended to do a wash for the sky and didn't want to pollute the white paper. I also used masking fluid on the railing and red wellington boots to protect those areas later to help make the colours vivid.
I started with the sky wash and then started to lay in colours, concentrating on all of the vegetation first. It was great to be working with watercolour again in this way, and I had loads of opportunities to experiment with wet-on-wet, wet-on-dry and layering glazes to get the colour and effects for the different trees, bushes and shrubs. After I had finished all the trees, I rubbed off the masking fluids and carefully got to work on the lower half. I adjusted some of the colours to fit with the gamut I was using but found it very hard to do figures at this scale. There were also other areas with detail that were not defined enough and were very vague. Additionally, when I was using ink, it seemed a lot easier to get a sense of snow on the ground.
So I wondered what to do with my piece, as it seemed quite unfinished. Looking back a the brief a noticed a throwaway comment about using all the pencils in the box. It reminded me that my only restriction was not to use ink. So I took out my watercolour pencils and used them dry to add in the details and texture that was missing, and this helped me get a much better final result:
Summary
I have been trying hard to get better at inking with a brush, but I still find it hard. Pens were much easier to control, and I really enjoyed learning new ways to make marks. I found that could implement ideas a lot easier with pens. It did, however, make my hand hurt for days after.
It did make me realise that there are certain jobs that suit different tools. Fine work, texture and small figures were a lot easier with pens. Brushes, however, were able to give a lovely sense of flow and movement to the organic elements of the image.
I don't however, want to fall into a comfort zone of using pens. I still think there is a lot of mileage of learning how to make a brush doe the things I want it to do. Whilst I found hatching and stippling with pens logical and controlled, I still struggle with how best to use hatching with a pen. I don't think I am a fan of too much, nor using traditional techniques like feathering. Sadly, I am not sure what the alternative is.
I thought more structured details would have been harder to create with a brush. Whilst they were easier with pens, I was pleased by my improving ability to create steady lines with a brush.
The colour image was a mixed bag. I learned more again about how to use watercolour, but my attempts to utilise its capricious nature didn't really work this time. I was glad I allowed myself permission to layer pencils on top, as I think it would have been much less successful without them. I struggled with balancing effectiveness with trying to do a more traditional watercolour landscape. Like I was torn between two worlds. I am not sure either world benefited from the tension.
All-in-all, this was a really useful albeit gruelling exercise. It's spurred me on to do dedicated practice between pens and brushes, and I think where colour is concerned with comics, I am currently best off making the most out of simple graphic colouring, rather than try and rely on more traditional watercolour skills; it's obvious to me at the moment that those skills need a lot more work.
コメント