ink – Carve & Draw

Favorite Part

It’s been a few days so I wanted to post a quick snapshot of the progress on my current drawing.

Right now I’m just filling in the background and honestly, despite it being tedious, it’s the part of the drawing I like doing the most. When I’m inking solid backgrounds it’s like slipping into a meditative state where I don’t have to think much. I’m not worrying about whether the subject matter looks the way I intended it to look or anything of the sort. All I have to be mindful of is whether the stippling is smooth or not, which is easy to correct if it isn’t.

I also noticed that creating drawings where I get to fill in backgrounds like this allows me to get comfortable with the drawing first and ease any anxiety I might feel because even though I’ve been doing this for a while now, each new drawing causes me a certain amount of anxiety. It’s like going on a first date over and over again. You’re excited, nervous and worried about messing it up. So spending a few days just quietly stippling the background lets me get comfortable and familiar with my drawing.

In the process of working on the background I’ve changed things just slightly. In my initial base drawing I had drawn four rays of light coming down. I’ve now reduced it to just one main ray, which I’m still not sure if I’m going to leave in or not. I might just go with having a halo of light around the dove’s head. I’m still working it out in my mind so we’ll see.

First Mini Block Prints

I have been literally drawing a blank on ideas for my next drawing. A fellow artist told me it’s probably best to take a break, so that’s what I’ve been doing but I’m not taking a break from being creative. While I’m recharging my battery for pointillism, I carved up a few designs for some mini block prints. Nothing too fancy, just some simple designs based off of lotuses and spiritual symbols. In the picture above from left to right the symbols are Dao, Om and Gye Nyame, which is a African adinkra symbol for the supremacy of God. Surprisingly I didn’t get too frustrated while carving these so I’m claiming them as officially my first mini block prints. 😃

This Saturday Morning

…has kicked off to tummy aches and the nauseating burnt smell of sweet potatoes, when all the water has boiled out of the steamer, that you completely forgot about while trying to nurse your aching stomach. I keep telling myself to eat smaller meals because I’m not fortunate enough to have a cast iron, garbage disposal for a gut, which seems to have a fit at the slightest over load or meeting of a new ingredient. Guess I won’t be getting fries with my Chicken Tawook again. I, so wanted to just curl up on the couch and suffer with my defeat but I opted to squeeze in at least 45 minutes of stippling to bring me closer to finishing my 8×6 drawing of “Maybe”. I had been mulling over how to stipple white lilies without using too much ink but yet not so little that they indistinguishable from the background. It requires a delicate placement of dots to hint at shadows without giving the impression of a hue. I’ve concluded that I might need a smaller nibbed pen and I can only imagine the time it would take to finish a work at such a smaller size but for the effect, I think it will be well worth it. So I’m off to look for a new pen. Hope all is well with you lovelies this Saturday. 😊

Magnolia

60 mph winds swooped through my area last night and knocked downed trees and power lines for over 600k residents. I am one of those residents. In an effort to finish this baby up, I had to go all 1820s, pulling out oil lamps, candles…and an old iPod Touch, which I used as a handheld light source to get a closer look at my work. It was a chilly, dark but beautifully moon lite productive night.

The power is still out and it may be so for a few days. Good thing the weather isn’t too cold to lose a couple of toes to frost or too warm to make all the meat in the freezer go bad. I’m currently wrapped up in two blankets, a fur hat, head scarf, Nike pulled over, a thermal shirt, tank top, sweat pants, two pairs of socks and slippers. I don’t think I’ll be getting much done today since the temperature is suppose to be dropping and we might get some snow. But I’m glad that I pushed through and got Magnolia done. This is my first 8×6 all botanical ink drawing, a departure from my usual ACEO drawings. During the process of creating it I started following the works of other botanical artists on Instagram in an interest to learn more about botanical art. Since the female form and flowers are a common theme in my work I figured I would explore the works of others who also like to draw flowers and other various plant life, to take a peek at their techniques, subject and materials they like to use. Being a former student of botany, I think botanical art is right up my alley.

Anyhoo, “Magnolia” is all finished and now available for a new home at my online store: www.qrumbley.com

Early Influences: Aubrey Beardsley

I don’t remember exactly when or how I came across Aubrey Beardsley. Bits and pieces of a high school library on a sunny afternoon seem to be the only clues that my memory can conjure up. But I do remember very vividly sitting in my bedroom and feeling proud of the personal copy of “The Climax” that I had just completed. So I can say with certainty that it was sometime during my senior year in high school that I became acquainted with the fella.

If you have been following my posts over the last year then you know I have a love for the simplicity of line drawings and Beardsley is one of those artists who captures that quite well in many of his ink illustrations. Now anyone who has ever been brave enough to have studied his work is aware that it can be a bit bizarre and risque, especially for the times in which he created. I admit, that was part of what I liked about it back then but now a days, nothing is all that risque. Besides his use of ink and lines, Beardsley was most all my gateway artist into the art movement of Art Nouveau. This was a style and movement that even ’til this day still influences my work and ideas about art.