Drawing progress report 6 -- start with a wash

In mid-May I was drawing at my desk and noticed a bottle of brown india ink lurking behind some other stuff.  I think I had been tidying up and the ink was newly visible to the naked eye, and it called to me.  I grabbed a brush and made a loose circular form, then doodled around it with my 005 Micron pen.

Even though the ink was not behaving very well -- it had globs of pigment instead of a smooth solution -- I liked what was happening, especially the contrast between the light wash and the black ink lines.  I experimented with this approach for a week or more.

In lieu of laying down the colored ink with a brush, I tried drawing curves with the tip of the eye dropper.  I liked that even more. (The curves reminded me of free-motion quilting.)



I was experimenting with different kinds of doodles around the edges and was particularly taken with the curves and shapes drawn with two parallel lines, as in the sketch below.  The second line gave more weight and made the mark more visible, but still had the delicacy of the very fine pen point.

 

I was happy with these drawings; again, I felt that I was developing my own ideas instead of just randomly drawing whatever showed up on the table.