Inktober 2017 #24

Blind. References from Attemptestock

I started this on the morning of the 24th before work, but I knew I wouldn’t have time to get it finished. As it was such a beautiful stock image I wanted to take more time over it and do delicate ink washes, so factoring in that drawing faces and hands are not my strong points I gave myself permission to overrun.

I am glad that i did so as the reason I didn’t have time to complete it on the evening was because I went to a talk by artist and illustrator Linda Birch at The Witham, were she showed some of her early ink illustrations from childrens books that were she was inspired by the artist Thomas Bewick. (Who was a wood engraver/printer illustrator)

Thomas Bewick, Aesop fables. From google search, not my image!

She told us about how long it takes and spent a lot of time hatching, how often she had to take work on holiday with her, but how much she loved the process and the challenge of black and white.

Another dose of inspiration are Myriam’s Illustraions inktober videos where she is illustrating mental health.

What this has lead to was me spending all of day 25 hatching allover day 24. I’ve been inspired to make more of an effort to use the hatching as more of a contour to depict the shape and the form, alongside the tonal values.

Although i could still be working on blind right now, adding more hatching, enough is enough, i am pretty happy with how it’s turned out, a few mistakes here and there, but oh well.

I used my trusty kuru toga pencil, noodlers bomb proof ink in my lamy safari pen, daler rowney FW acrylic ink, diluted down, white acrylic marker to fix mistakes, and various brushes, all on bamboo mixed media paper.