Richard Bell's nature sketchbook since 1998
Rohrer’s, Winsor & Newton, Pelikan, Noodler’s, Universal stamp pad, FW Acrylic inks (plus Tipp-Ex and Rowney Soluble Matt Varnish . . . drawn with my Lamy AL-star filled with De Atramentis Document Ink, which dries waterproof so that I could add White Nights watercolour with a Daler Aquafine Sable Round.
My pen project continues but I thought that the inks ought to make an appearance today. The ’20 ounce’ bottle of Super Quink red ink was redundant stock that my dad brought back from the office c.1970. It still works fine. The Chinese ink in the attractive blue-and-white bottle was something that I tried when I worked on my monochrome sketchbook published as High Peak Drifter. I made four dilutions at different strengths which I took on my travels to simplify adding the tone.
Daler’s FW Acrylic Artists Ink goes back to my Yorkshire Rock days. I remember buying two shades of blue when I drew an underwater spread of ‘Life on the Reef’ for the Carboniferous Limestone section of the book. This bottle was Sepia, my go-to colour for most of the line work.
The Special Red is Pelikan Drawing Ink, from the 1970s. The one with the blue cap is Winsor and Newton Calligraphy Ink, the Burnt Sienna behind it is Rotring Drawing Ink. Bringing up the rear on the right, are plastic bottles of Stephen’s and Horse stamp pad inks.
My latest fantasy pens include a gardener’s pen, complete with dibber and garden twine, a crime writer’s pen which will keep CSI busy for days and a walking pole pen which includes compass, pedometer and even and emergency supply of Kendal Mint Cake.
After a bit of a break, I’ve gone back to Clip Studio Paint on the iPad Pro, drawing with an Apple Pencil. Struggling to draw from memory on the iPad (see below), I decided to re-familiarise myself with the process by drawing three India ink bottles that happened to be sitting on my desk.
As usual, I started with a pencil layer, which proved useful because I made the third bottle that I drew a bit too small compared with the others. I realised that it wasn’t going to work as I inked it in (below) so it was easy to go back to the pencil outline, to correct the proportions (right). Virtual erasers don’t chew up the virtual paper.
I created a new layer labelled ‘pen’ and drew with a G-pen, one of the standard pens in the Clip Studio toolbox.
I added a ‘paint’ layer and painted with some of the watercolour brushes but then felt that I needed some darker areas, so added another layer for different ink brushes.
I decided on a tonal background rather than the white of the virtual paper, so used the rectangle tool to draw a box around the subject which I then followed on one final layer, using the pen tool to trace around the box, so that the line matched the drawing.
This is the drawing from memory that I was struggling with. It was supposed to be one of my teachers but I haven’t caught his character as I remember him. After a bit of drawing from life, I’m ready to try drawing from memory again.