Thursday, November 12, 2009

Art-Toons: Daily Doodles

Medium: India Ink with large brush on Strathmore Bristol Smooth, "Excellent art surface for creating comics, cartoons and graphic novel illustrations."





Today's doodle experiment taught me to isolate my images from each other, to work on the panels one at a time. Originally, I had wanted the ink to have time to dry for the next step--embellishment. But after the ink dried, I found myself unable to flow from one panel to the next. Next time, I will start in the middle and work my way up and down, left and right. The drawings lost their sense of continuity and unity when I tried to work sequentially. And to be truthful, I found myself bored with the technique. Putting on the darks in one sitting, panel by panel in sequence, did not allow the freedom of movement I was seeking nor did it allow the entire project to achieve a satisfying overall pattern.

For now, since I do not have a large scanner, I will limit myself to 8 1/2 by 11 inch pages and save the Strathmore for my final inkings. At least I found the Art-Tooning Tools I'd been looking for: Color-erase non-photo blue and 1 oz. jar of Bleed-Proof Opaque White Water Color by Daler Rowney.