Pen and Ink drawing Part 1 (M6 Chpt 3)

This chapter covers a lot of material and I thought it best to post my work over two posts. This post will look at all the various techniques and mark making tools for drawing with pen and ink and the next post will have my examples of work in this medium. Additionally I've changed the way I'm working on this final module, working one day a week as opposed to doing a complete chapter in one go over a few days or a week or so. This works better for me as it means I'm not taking lengthy periods away from other work and also I approach each section of a chapter with fresh eyes.

Pen and ink - how exciting. I've been looking forward to this chapter since I quickly scanned the notes after downloading the module. Of course I could have made a start myself earlier, but sometimes it takes a bit of a push to try out new techniques.

The Tools

I started off gathering useful drawing tools: a) biro - my trusty favourite, b) ultra fine sharpie, c) various nibs and Indian ink, d) fine line markers - waterproof e) non waterproof drawing pen/felt:

Using thick and textured watercolour paper throughout, I made a grid for each drawing tool and tried various marks in each square. Each square was 4x4cm

Biro

Biro is always good to work with and good for all round mark making:

Ultra Fine Sharpie

Surprising I didn't automatically think of this, as I always use sharpie for firming up drawing on lino. It was a really good all round mark making tool

Pen nib with Indian Ink

I worked with three nibs, dip pen, 2mm left handed calligraphy nib, split nib. Also Indian ink was a superb smooth flowing ink.

Dip pen

This was a smoother and more versatile nib than I had thought at first. I had a notion that curls and circles would be hard to achieve and give rise to splatter, this was not the case. In fact dip pen may have been my favourite drawing tool in general:

Split nib

This made for some lovely individual marks but on the whole was not good for general drawing purposes.

2mm left handed calligraphy nib

As above, good for individual mark making but not a good all rounder

Fine Line Pens

I bought myself a full set of these (0.003, 0.005, 0.1, 0.3, 0.5, 0.8) They were great all round pens to use and of course different thicknesses of nib can be mixed together in the same drawing:

Adding colour / fluid to pen marks

Lots of different water soluble things to try out here and some pre-conceived ideas to be reviewed!

This is by no means an exhaustive list of things to try out but it was a good start, and you might recommend something additionally. I had a go with the following: a) watercolour paint, b) caran d'ache neocolour 2, c) inktense block, d) drawing ink - Winsor and Newton, d) watercolour pencil, e)watercolour fibre pen. 

Watercolour paint and the Winsor and Newton inks were of course really good to use. The water colour crayon was not an outstanding medium, however the inkense block, which I was sure would be horrible, was in face a delight to use and gave great variety in the intensity of colour achieved.  Water colour pencil was fine for delicate areas and watercolour fibre pens were a great all rounder. 

As before I made a grid. Along the top are the various drawing tools and down the side the colour medium. I made some notes down the right hand side. Indian ink is not water fast until it's really very dry, which was an interesting discovery.

Trying out different wetting tools

In the above exercises, I used only paintbrush on the colour. But I had a few other tools up my sleeve. A Caran d'ache water fibre tipped marker and a large 8mm marker, that could be filled with any diluted medium but for this purpose only filled with water. Each of course had it's merits and would work very well if working from life

Trying out water colour pen (which hadn't worked with paint brush but did with the pressure of water filled fibre pens) and biro with colour added - if that makes sense

One final thing

I was checking through my useful books and came across a drawing by Albrecht Durer. It was interesting to note the simplicity of his pen marks and how perfectly they described his subject.

Claire Gordon

27/02/21

Trying out various standing book types (M6 Chpt 2)

Along the way with this course I've made a number of different book types. In Module 3 I spent some time making rough books, and realised then that making the effort to make samples work is key to appreciating what a book type might offer further down the line. Certainly, approaching this part of chapter two I had preconceived ideas about what I thought  might look good, but had to reassess those assumptions after I'd got underway with the work. It's always the case too that some books are simply more enjoyable to make than others regardless of whether you wish to pursue the design idea further.

In total I made 6 book samples for this activity: gate fold, pamphlet, tunnel, two types of accordion and a flag book. Each had their own merits for taking further. I'm open minded at this stage as to which, if any of these, I'll use in Chapter 10. All my samples were successfully free standing.

 I used the same black thin card as a base for all of the books so they  looked cohesive as a whole. I've listed the books in the order that I made them.

GATEFOLD BOOK

Starting out on this activity, this was the book idea that held out most opportunity to me. I had considered making a final book of elaborate doorways opening one after another, culminating in my own front door and concluding with a drawing of my hallway. I've not given up on that idea. I made rubbings from various old linocut plates as a base for this booklet.

PAMPHLET BOOK

I liked the idea of this kind of book and certainly the sample worked out very well. Although I only used once side of the pamphlet, using both sides would make for a really interesting free standing book. I used Keith Haring work for Module 5 to decorate this book

FLAG BOOK

Probably my least favourite sample and certainly to take this forward I'd need to consider working on both sides of the flags as well as the base the flags are attached to. On the whole I find the more complicated the design the less successful the outcome, but I can see a large panorama of a building would be exciting to present this way. I used some thick paper (300gsm) coloured with powdered watercolour pigment to get an intense colour base.

SIMPLE ACCORDION

This was an unexpected find, easy to make but a little different to other accordions. I really enjoyed making this little book and it would be great for displaying small details, maybe even added to a larger accordion. I used some old greek /coptic calligraphy I had done a few years ago for this.

TUNNEL BOOK

This was great fun to make, although I'm not sure this kind of free standing book will make a reappearance.

CONCERTINA WITH SEWN PAGES

Definitely a very good option for the final chapter as the sewn insert pages would allow for additional drawings and notes. I used some test prints from a series of Aztec inspired playing cards (House of Spades, the fighters)

Getting stuff together

Choosing the test prints

Giving test prints a watercolour wash in raw umber

Printing out images for reverse of booklet

The inserts to be sewn in

Inserts decorated

Joining the paper

Looking at various ways to sew in the additional sheets

The back decorated

The prints glued to the front

Aligning the inserts

the inserts sewn in 

 Opening the book

Standing book

 The stitches tied at the back

All of them together

Claire Gordon

20/02/21