Every month is Inktober!

Many artists on social media do ink drawings in October and post them. It's called "Inktober." I would too, I suppose, but I'm simply not that organized. Anyway, I love rich black India ink and I use it almost every day anyway.

Happy Inktober!

mallard ripples
ink charcoal
10-04-16

Ripples
crayon, ink, charcoal
09-30-16

ducks
pencil, ink
09-26-16

feeding mallard
pencil, ink
09-08-16

The island
02-07-16
ink

Snow flurries

As I was sketching the other morning, snowflakes started to swirl around me. They fell in the pools of black ink in my drawing of the water in front of me.

I had to leave before the ink dried and when I opened up my sketchbook at home, the pools of ink had dried and smeared. It almost ruined the drawing and I thought I should fix those parts that were diluted by the added snow and the blotting that happened while I walked home. But, after reflection, I decided that I liked the result: the finished image displayed the balance between my intelligence (such as it is!) in the world and the world itself. We have détante here between order (such as it is!) and the benign chaos of Nature.

This makes me think of Jackson Pollock who asserted that when made his famous "drip" paintings he became Nature itself. I'm not so sure. But then, I'm not sure of many things. In the end, it's a philosophical question and these, we know, have no answers. Best to just enjoy the ride.

03-28-15
ink

03-28-15
work in progress

03-28-15
ink, crayon, melting snow

detail

Drawing in The Rain

Pleasant Street Bridge, rain
ink, crayon
10-2-24

Great Blue Heron
ink, crayon
10-2-24

Swan
ink
10-2-24

It's raining. We need it. I hope the pep band's instruments stay dry tonight!

Go Redhawks!

The Basics

Swan
September 22, 2014
ink

Ducks
September 20, 2014
ink, house paint

Mallard Duck
September 20, 2014
ink, house paint

Geese
September 22, 2014
ink

Duck
September 22, 2014
ink, crayon

Moon & Miscellaney

Supermoon…almost
08-07-14
watercolor, lithographic tusche

More inkiness: mallards & geese
08-09-14

Big trout
08-09-14

Dabbling mallards
08-11-14
charcoal

Dabbling mallards near rocks
08-11-14
charcoal

For Klaus

Here is a small compendium of drawings of geese (and a few other birds). I've drawn quite a few more over the years.

I hope you like them.

a sleeping swan

mallard and ducklings

charcoal

not ink (colored pencil)

sepia ink

geese and one swan

Inky Geese

Someone requested that I do more ink drawings of geese.

So I did: July 15th, 2014

Happy to oblige!

Bonne journée!

Ink Drawings

08-01-12
These were drawn with sienna ink and conté pencil

detail

detail

It's been very humid lately and that makes it problematic to draw with pencil. The paper gets soft and you have to bear down more with the pencil. And, I'm getting a little bored with the pencils anyway… so I've been using ink in my en plein-air drawing. And this burnt sienna ink gives the drawing an old fashioned look. So that's kind of fun too. How interesting!

There's a reason for everything, even when there's no reason or when someone is being unreasonable!

Ink Drawings

Great Blue Heron

detail

detail

drybrush detail

mallard (detail)

two mallards feeding on the vertical face of the dam

mallard preening, getting ready for a morning nap

mallard feeding on the face of the dam

Ink Drawings

brush and ink. The wash is a mix of coffee and India ink.

These were great fun to do this morning. A small flock of mallards was feeding and minding their business in the river below the dam. They seemed so peaceful and dedicated to their own particular needs. They eat, preen, dabble and squabble and chase each other around. And they rest by tucking their heads under their wings and balancing on one leg. Can you do that?