I've started working on a new drawing and inspired by
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, I have decided to track the progress of this particular drawing. I'm not sure if it will be of interest to anyone who reads this blog, but it might be a nice exercise for me to see how the drawing develops. And so here is the drawing laid out on the paper:
I do work from a sketch but I didn't take a picture of that. I may add it later.
When I work on the drawings, I work on the floor using a big piece of homosote as a drawing board. I use Stonehenge paper because it holds up very well to repeated layers but doesn't soak up the ink as fast as some of the softer printmaking papers.
In this stage the compositions always look a little weird but since I'm going to stretch the drawing afterward I will be losing inches from the edges. For instance, this is going to be a large drawing probably 52" x 44"(stretched). For drawings this size I use heavy duty stretcher bars and so I'll lose roughly 4 inches on all sides.
After the drawing is laid out on the paper its time for the first layers of ink. Using large hake brushes I wet the area of paper that I wanted to work on. The ink will only bleed into the areas that are wet so I have a certain amount of control. Last night, I but the first layers on the sky and then this morning I put the first layer on the city. There will be a certain amount of collage work on this drawing but I hate to see white paper peeking through at the end so everything get at least some color.
In the last photo you can still see the under-drawing of the sky creature. I wanted her/it to blend into the sky until I go in with the final layers of ink and drawing. Hopefully, I'll be able to bring it out enough....
If you want to see a couple more pics go to: http://picasaweb.google.com/JHooverArtwork/DrawingCreationPhotos