Category: Pen and Ink

Categories
Art For Sale Pen and Ink

Brush With Art

Brush With Art. Platinum Preppy fountain pen with Platinum Carbon ink on Strathmore 300 Series Bristol paper. 8″ x 8″ framed. $320

This is an unusual piece for me, in that I deviated from my usual approach of first subdividing the page into sections suitable for individual micro-drawings. I instead opted to ‘go with the flow’ of the patterns and elements that evolved in the piece, and I think the results are handsome; I will likely repeat this approach in a future piece. It was also created over an extended period of time: I found it in my unfinished-works pile earlier this year, and decided it was worth pursuing. The earliest portions probably date back over a year.

There are a lot of fun aspects to this piece that came out well. I’m particularly pleased with the tree and droplet, which was non-trivial to do at such as small scale. The title comes from the brush at the bottom and to the right of center, which turned out to be serendipitous (I was struggling with how to title this one until I saw it and realized the potential.) There are a couple of stray marks I might clean up down the road, but I’ve received enough marvelous compliments on this one that I’m calling it a winner.

Categories
Art NFS Pen and Ink

Ah Nuts!

Ah Nuts! Micron pens on Strathmore 300 Series Artists Tiles. 4” x 4”

This piece is one I uncovered in a box of art supplies I’d left sitting for a while (as in years), so I don’t have a precise date of completion, however I’d ballpark it at 2015. It’s one of a series of small pieces I did to keep my hands busy while I thought about a problem. It has one or two very minor flaws, but the precision is very good to my eye, and I enjoy the humor of the squirrel in one corner and the nuts in another, hence the title.

Categories
Color Pen and Ink Sold

Crystal Method

Crystal Method. Gelly Roll Glaze, Metallic, and Moonlight pens, Derwent Inktense pencils, and Holbein Gouache paints on Strathmore 300 Series Bristol Paper, mounted on a 12″ x 12″ x 1″ panel treated with hammered metal paint. 12″ x 12″ framed. $550 SOLD

This piece was created for the UNDISCLOSED exhibit at the Toledo School for the Arts. The exhibit is a fundraiser for the school in which patrons purchase tickets, then randomly draw a number from a fishbowl at the event that determines the order in which they can choose a piece. The artists sign their works on the back of the piece; hence the “undisclosed” part, which puts all of the artists on a level playing field in the selection process.

I did this one in a style that’s different from my signature black-and-white, gravity-agnostic, news-driven pieces for the purpose of obfuscating who did it, and I think I was successful. The blend of gouache at the bottom was a last-minute addition at the suggestion of my daughter, and I’m pleased with how that came out; it creates depth where there wasn’t before. The top was surprisingly demanding to create with precision (freehand is hard!), and the entire piece took a good eighteen hours or so. The foremost row of crystals are outlined with Gelly Roll’s Metallic pens and filled with their Glaze pens, which gives them a three-dimensional aspect and makes them glisten as the viewer shifts their perspective. Those in the middle are filled with the Moonlight pens, and the rear-most were done with the Derwent Inktense pencils, the marks of which were then ‘washed’ with a wet brush. The purpose of using the different types of pens and pencils was also to create a sense of depth in the crystal array, but I can’t decide how effective that was – What do you think?