 |
| Water lily ink drawing by Susan Brubaker Knapp |
This month’s theme on The Sketchbook Challenge was “natural surfaces,”and I decided to try sketching water. The drawing above is about 7.5" x 10", and is based on this photo I took several years ago:
I
did this drawing in a small sketchbook I take with me when I travel to
teach, and worked on it over the past month. I printed out photographs
of things I wanted to sketch, and took them with me so that I could work
from them on the go.
I
used crosshatching (lines drawn in at different directions) to get at
the ripples in the water, and the changes in value. But I don’t think I
captured it. I definitely don’t have the darkest values in yet.
It
is helpful to look at the drawing next to the photograph and examine
the differences in value. I am also considering adding color to the ink
drawing, and using dark shades of color to increase the values where
they are needed in the drawing.
One
of the tricks with ink drawings is to use different drawing/shading
techniques on things that have different textures. The water was
rippled; the flower was velvety. To add shading on the flower, I used
dots, which look softer than the crosshatching does on the water.
Here’s
a detail shot of the leaves and the stems, which were underwater. It
was tricky to make the stems look like they were underwater, and add
just enough shadows.
By the way, if you’ve been wondering why you haven’t seen more fiber art and art quilts here, you’ll be glad to know that I am working on some (and I’ve been teaching a lot!). It’s just that I’ve been working on a few things that I’m not allowed to show you yet! One is for an exhibition, and one is for a magazine article in the works. Stay tuned!
Posts
