spligity

Day 1


This was my first time drawing the figure from life for an extended period of time (25 min) in about 5 years. For this drawing I chose to use ink with dry brush techniques to loosen up. When using ink, I like to use the wash (water with a bit of ink in it) to sketch in a gesture. The purpose of this is to get a handle on the volume and proportions of the figure before I really need to commit to anything.



_{A closer look at the dry brush.}

Day 2


My strategy going in was mostly developed on my own. Even in my gestures i seek out contours and edges over all else. The resulting proportions tended to rely on my prior understanding of the figure, and my drawings appear rather flat. This technique works well enough on my own, but when I'm put under a time limit my figures tended to change scale suddenly and appeared a bit awkward...

Day 3


Seeking out the edges of planes within the figure rather than the shapes of the planes themselves lead to this proportional monstrosity. Had I looked for the over-all shape of a plane on the figure, like the light side of the thighs perhaps, I might have gotten their scale right. Instead I merely followed contours and ended up getting kind of lost...

Day 4


My teacher lent me a different type of ink to use for this day, and it didn't absorb into the paper quite as readily. I'm not that accustomed to working wet on wet, but this was my opportunity to learn I suppose.


<sub>Wet on wet can result in some interesting shapes and gradients, as the ink flows along any paths of water on the surface of the paper.


But it also doesn't take  much to get away from you. Here I accidentally added too much ink to a wet area and it just took over.</sub>

Day 5


I feel like on this day I made a break though with my trusty zebra pen. I didn't have time to fully render the figure, but in this context it's fine.


_{The shadows are looking pretty complex, and reflected light shines through as well.}

Day 6


I've started blocking in cast shadows and shapes where I see them, rather than merely following edges. This takes some time to get used to as you need to learn to trust yourself. It may seem like you're just following some random blob of value, but following enough value blobs and ambiguous planes will result in a resolved form.


_{The quality of this photo isn't fantastic, but I think it demonstrates this concept well enough. The figure is pretty clear despite the abstracted shapes within it.}

Day 7


On this day I was given some copic markers to sketch with. I drew many gestures over each other, then did a longer pose over them. I found the perspective of this pose rather difficult. I got pretty anxious about it, even as a student with a bit more experience XD. At least I remembered to include a fair amount of the environment. (On a side note, I learned during this session that copic markers aren't actually archival at all, and will begin to fade as early as 6 months after the drawing is finished!)

Day 8


We really only drilled gestures on this day. Practicing gestures is a great way to improve speed as well as helping with proportion. There are many different ways to go about drawing a gesture; here I used a couple well known techniques. The head is done mostly by blocking in shadows, the leg on the left is a simple line gesture, and the other leg is built using a scribble gesture.

Day 9


Sometimes carrying too much weight or moving heavy objects hurts my upper back, and for some reason this also compromises my left arm and wrist. It was hurting me a lot during this session, so I had to use my non-dominant hand instead. Drawing larger and while standing up helps if you're trying to use your non-dominant hand, as the shoulder is more important than the wrist for guidance and stability.

Day 10


Sharpies! My other love besides zebra pens. My teacher didn't really approve since in his mind sharpie as a medium dominates the drawing and forces it into a limited category, or genre... (Too graphic/illustrative bluh bluh) But I disagree!
I use the tool for how good it feels to draw with, not for whatever connotations you may have with it! Fight the power!!! >:0

Day 11


I really got into a good flow at this point. Finding more time to render the details.

Day 12


Tried focusing only on the face. This was kind of an off day though I think... I did a fair job showing the planes and structure of the face however.

Day 13


The last model was a newbie, and her poses were a bit stiff and awkward, but I still enjoyed trying to find effective ways to render her muscle mass in marker.


_{Cross contour lines are effective for showing volume and direction, as well as shading.}

Final Thoughts

   
Flat edged nibs must be held at different angles to produce different widths of line.

 
Ball nibs create different line widths depending on the pressure used by the artist.

Process

Now that I've shown you Rembrandt's work, I can embarrass myself by showing the pic I'll use to demonstrate my process




<sub>before I start I like to do some sketches to get a better idea of what I want the finished product to be


starting with pencil is a good method, but you can just go straight to ink if you want to torture yourself :3


next I use a gum eraser to lighten the pencil sketch
this is done by pressing the eraser over the image rather than rubbing it out


now I break out my ink and start finding the important edges


then draw the rest of the thing
aw ye fill it with textures!


and here's a vid I made of the process for those who like that kind of thing :></sub>

For this print I used a copper plate for my matrix.
The first step is to cover the plate with hard ground. That's the black stuff, which is a liquid that you paint onto the plate. If the coat is even it will smooth out while drying into a mirror-like surface.
Once the hard ground is dry you draw through it to expose the metal underneath using a needle.


^{These are the main drawing tools I use.
The leftmost is a standard etching needle, it makes the strongest lines.
The one in the middle is actually some sort of clay tool that I found in a windowsill, but the needle's thickness is perfect for etching.
And the one on the right is actually a mechanical pencil with a sewing needle in the end instead of lead. It works really well for small details.}

Here's a gif of me putting my plate into the acid bath.
This is a vertical bath, and the dark liquid inside is ferric acid which is used for etching on copper.
_{I like to use that brick to secure the tape to the edge, because it is extremely inconvenient to have a little plate fall down to the bottom of the bath XD}





Here are some shots of me painting portions out with universal ground (like hard ground but dries quicker) before putting my plate back into the acid.
Copper etches pretty slowly, so my lighter lines were etched for 10-20 minutes, and the darkest lines were left in the acid for around 2 hours.


^{Here's a gif of me removing the plate from the acid and rinsing it with water for good measure :3}


Once your plate is etched and ready to proof the hard ground needs to be cleaned off using mineral spirits.

^{Here' a pic of the presses.
The one in the back is for printing wookcuts, but the other two are calibrated for etching.}


But before I proof my plate I need to remove some lines that were etched.
To do this I need to use the scraper at the bottom to literally scrape out unwanted areas until smooth.
The other tool is a ball burnisher, and it's used to smooth out smaller areas.
The 3-in-one oil is used to protect the tools, and keep the plate from getting all scratched up.


^{Here's a short vid of me using a scraper.
The tools I'm using are the scraper and the burnisher}


Here's a recording of me actually pulling a print.



And finally, to make a color print as I have here, I needed to make three different plates of the same size, and run them through the press one after the other.
This gif shows me carefully placing the plates down in the same place, then running them through the press on the same paper.
It's very important to prevent the paper from moving, so I kept one edge under the roller until the all plates had gone through.


This is a register.
I made it by tracing the outline of my plates on a piece of newsprint.
Using this i can line my plates up exactly where they need to be on the press bed.