A Giddy Respite

“Moon and Stars” (wip)

It’s a good sign when you enjoy a drawing the moment you start laying down the first bits of ink. I’ve barely gotten started on this and I’m all giddy. I have to admit that some of that giddiness comes from this drawing being a break from doing realistic drawings. One of the underlining stressors of trying to create realistic art is making sure it actually looks realistic and that can take a lot of time and focus. A horror of mine is churning out something that looks more cartoonish when that isn’t the style I’m striving for. With this drawing the focus is more on design which is more flat and straight forward rather than realism which requires making objects look three dimensional. In other words, my brain gets to relax and not think so much. And honestly I could use the respite of something simple and relaxing. The hardest part to this was doing the line drawing which required some deal of measuring and a compass. Mandalas are beautiful but you really have to take the time to get the measurements right or you might end up with a lopsided mess.

I’m using two different nibs on this drawing, a 0.15mm nib for mid-tones and a 0.20mm nib for dark tones, the slightly larger nib allows me to achieve a darker quality since it puts out a little more ink while the smaller is better a mid-tones. The one thing I’ve learned and always keep in mine when it comes to creating a good pen and ink drawing is that there must be some contrast between light and dark. There should be some elements that are dark and some parts that are white or highlights with some mid-tones or grays in between, otherwise the drawing will look muted and lifeless. It’s an unfortunate yet common mistake that’s made when getting started with pen and ink drawing. So keep that in mind if you try your hand at pen and ink drawing. 🙂