Progressing, bit by bit...

This is drawn, I think, with a 2B in a .9mm technical pencil. It's on it's way to becoming, I hope, a watercolour. Quite large - 14" x 20" or 36cm x 51cm, Aquarelle Arches, 100% cotton, 300g/m or 140lb. I've done the shadows and the beautiful wrinkles in the skin lightly in the drawing - knowing that soft graphite will bleed into the water and paint.

Not sure whether to make it a very detailed, more realistic watercolour, or allow the paint to run freely for a more suggestive rendering.
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Couple of Ink Sketches

Some test ink drawings with Franklin-Christoph flex (top image that I half rubbed out) and fude nibs (bottom two figures) with a F-C chocolate ink on Strathmore cold press Watercolour paper, 9”x12”.



A poet, drawn today.



I dare not name him in case he doesn't like the beginnings of this ink sketch.



A beautiful black woman on the subway - I didn't feel like trying to darken the skin tone with ink lines, too finicky and easy to overdo (and, anyway, I'd have to do it from memory). She didn't see me drawing her, and I hope she forgives me.
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Could be a preparatory sketch, who knows

A preliminary sketch or maybe this is all I'll do, who knows. It's in the small pocket sketchbook, 5.5"x3.5". I finally got a Franklin-Christoph flex nib and Marietta #20 pen and had to try it out right away. On a more absorbent paper, I can get very fine lines, as well as thicker, but not on this paper. It's a Franklin-Christoph chocolate ink, too. So there's a 6H pencil - this paper cannot do anything lightly and that graphite hardness offers the lightest lines so far. And a Pilot gold gel pen. I haven't put in the shadows yet. I don't think the paper will allow the extra fine nib on the F-C pen to draw delicately enough, and more gel pens is very hard to do. I could pencil it in, but that seems boring. Oh, yeah, the eyes - well I am deeply into podcasts on Greek literature (Homer's Illiad currently) and so their sculptural aesthetic must have influenced. I'm almost afraid to ink in the eyes since there is no option for delicacy or mistake. We'll see. I haven't drawn in so long!

This is an iPhone pic and probably the scanner is better, or a DSLR with direct sunlight. But, ya know, snap it, post. Neva look back!

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