Black walnut ink house portrait

I finished this one yesterday. It's 11 x 15 inches.

House portrait finished today

Black walnut ink on Bristol paper, 9 x 16 inches. 

Sycamore & Butterfly Bush

 Both of these are walnut ink on paper.

Plum Creek

 Another drawing with black walnut ink, my first landscape (not counting foliage seen in house portraits) since...I don't know, last year sometime.  This is 10 x 14 inches, done with a combination of brush work and dip pens.

Black walnut ink house portrait

I finished this one a few nights ago. It is 11 x 15 inches.  Overall, I am satisfied with it, although frankly there are some elements of the house I'm not entirely happy with.  I'm happiest with the trees.  I enjoy working on trees and I'll try to do some more tree drawings soon.

Creekside art

I had some time to kill in Taylorsville while the girls attended a birthday party. Luckily, Waterford Park was nearby.

Cherokee Cottage, Jekyll Island

 Walnut ink on paper, 11 x 15 inches.  This was a bit of a rush job. I finished it last night around 12:45. I've been staying up late all week.

School building drawing - black walnut ink

Whew! I finished the drawing of the school.  I’ve crammed in a lot of work over the past couple of weeks.  This is black walnut ink, 11 x 15 inches.

Another black walnut ink drawing

 Here's another work-in-progress, one of several projects I am working on right now.  This is 11 x 15 inches.  It's getting there.

Thick black walnut ink

 

I just started using some of the black walnut ink I made last November.  I have four jars from that batch.  The first one I opened was oddly thick.  I could still use a paint brush with it, but it was too viscous to use with a dip pen.

The second jar I opened was normal, and worked wonderfully with a dip pen.

I wonder what happened with the first jar? (I haven't checked the other jars yet.)  It was pretty weird; not crusty at the top like it had dried out, just uniformly thickened.  That jar did have a small film of mold growing in it, but I've had mold in jars of ink before and not had it affect the ink flow.  I wonder if the gum Arabic I added did something strange?  But if so, why didn't it do that to the second jar?

I might be able to re-thin it with water, and even if I can't, it's not a great loss, and like I said, I can still use it with a brush.

I had the idea of obtaining a large number of small bottles and making ink to sell, but if I do that, I guess I better establish some quality controls!

Latest house portrait

Such a pretty little house! This is black walnut ink on paper, about 8 x 10 inches.

Artist statement, finished, for now

 Here's my first completed artist statement.  I've never before actually completed one to my satisfaction, but I needed to turn one in with my submission to the Mazin Annual Art Exhibition at the Jewish Community Center, so I worked this out as best I could.  It's specific to my pen & ink work.

"Of art media, I love oil paint, but a few years ago I became curious about making my own black walnut ink. I was quickly drawn into pen & ink.  Almost without intending to, I developed a sideline of drawing house portraits, and recently began working on a series of Louisville landmarks.

"The whole process of working with ink intrigues me; making ink, experimenting with homemade drawing tools, watching how the ink changes as it dries, and building up drawings with layers of pen marks and brush strokes.  Most especially, I love to look at that borderline between the whole work and its component marks--to be far enough away to see the illusion of the whole image, but close enough to see how the illusion is constructed."

"I am most satisfied with my art when I use it to document my experiences and explore my environment while also seeking nuance and subtlety in my medium.  I primarily see this exploration as intellectual, as opposed to emotional, though it is based in my sense of wonder and appreciation for nature's beauty.  My favorite subjects are landscapes and old architecture, but I prefer to combine both.  Places and things that have been worn or aged by both nature and humans catch my eye, and I always want to learn the history of the area in which I draw or paint.

New Blog

I have considered the idea for quite a while, and now I've finally done it.  I have started a second blog for my artwork:

http://marktablerart.blogspot.com/

I'll still post to this blog, and I'll still post art stuff on this blog.  However, I've noticed ever-increasing traffic on this site relating to my art activities, and I think for both professional and personal reasons it's better for my artwork to have a blog just for itself.  This blog never really was an art blog, it's just a blog about me, and it often has my artwork.

There will be a lot of cross-over, but for professional reasons it's past time that I had a dedicated art blog.

My art studio

At least for now...
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Walnut ink lunch break sketch 6-23-2011

Black walnut ink on paper, about 11 x 15 inches.

 

I did this one today, again over at  E. P. Sawyer State Park.  Most of this was done with my homemade bamboo pens, but I also used a large brush to roughly darken a few areas, and I did a little bit of shading/drawing with a fine metal nib, too.

 

I sat in a small gazebo, and it was very nice out.  Nearby, five women gathered under a big tree and discussed plans for an upcoming wedding in that spot.
 

 

Lunch break drawing 6-16-11

Here's a black walnut ink drawing I made at lunch today.  This was over at E. P. Sawyer State Park. I like drawing trees, but I wish I could find something else that interests me.  I wish there were some more older houses close by.

 

This was on 14 x 17 inch paper, with one of my homemade bamboo pens and a brush (the brush was much easier to use than my finger.)
 

 

Lunch break 6-15-11, Haunz Lane Park

I did this one in about half an hour, and it sort of looks like it.  It's 14 x 17 inches, and I used my homemade bamboo pens and my fingers to smear the ink over large areas (finger painting!).  It's the creek that runs through the park.  Not very successful; I think it looks sort of like the woods are on fire, but it was fun messing around. 

 

Lunch break sketch from a month ago

This is one from early May, in charcoal.
 

 

Lunch break sketch

This is a charcoal sketch from early April.  I did this in the woods behind my office building.
 

 

Bamboo pens

I cut down two pieces of bamboo into homemade bamboo pens. They work pretty well; this is them with some marks made using my homemade black walnut ink.

Sorry it's not a great photo. This was taken with the Blackberry.