Some ink drawings from May 11, 2013 at 6:32pm. These are each about 4 inches tall. I have been doing a lot of drawings in this size lately. I have been using Prismacolor markers with a brush tip and they have the ability to make these incredibly thin lines. The extreme pressure sensitivity has lead me to experiment with chair and desk height to get the optimal arm position. I have good results on a low lap desk that allows my whole arm to move.
I made these drawings on April 6, 2013 at 10:02am. I used liquitex ink and a refillable OTR marker. Each drawings is approximately 9×12 inches. I made several sets that morning, will post some more soon.
It’s been awhile since I posted drawings from my sketchbook. Here are some from February 1st, 2013. These drawings are in preparation for Number 433. Number 432 is already in progress and mostly finished, those of you who follow my Instagram have seen some progress shots. If I can finish it in time 433 will be in my upcoming show at The Carrack Modern Art with Ryan McKellar and Joe McDonough March 11-23, 2013. We have a few special performances planned and I may even be creating an installation… but more on that later. For now, sketches:
12″x12″ 3 layers in green
Experiments with the new markers continue. The drawings here were done with the “transformer marker” which has an interchangeable head for nibs of different size. These were made with the 15mm nib. The ink is Liquitex Acrylic Ink, which I have been using not so much because I like it but because it is available at a local store. The ink is not bad, but it does not have some of the qualities I like in other inks. Drying speed is not something that I had thought would be important but I have found that the faster drying inks have a more even color. Anything that lets moisture sit on the paper tends to cause more severe buckling and leaves light or dark spots in the ink. The Liquitex ink is good but it does not compare to the Molotow ink on drying speed or opacity. Transparency is not bad though, and these drawings are based on that aspect of the ink. I am using multiple layers of the pen to get new and interesting shapes out of the overlay. The ink goes on very smooth through the chunky 15mm nib. Each successive layer goes on sharp as long as the drawing is allowed to sit between coats for the ink to fully dry.
12″x12″ Purple and Grey
With each layer I added a few more drops of brown ink to the pen
12″x12″
12″x12″
18″x24″
18″x24″
11″x14″
11″x14″
Here are a few in a smaller 8×10 format:
I have been having some fun with the Masterpiece 60mm marker. I quickly exhausted the speedflow black ink it came with. This ink has the best effect through a new nib. I was unable to get this quality of streaking with any of the other inks. All of the following drawings are 18″x24″ in size.
Seriously though, look at these streaks:
Then I experimented with the purple One4All ink. Straight out of the bottle it is a little too thick to flow easily in this pen. I thinned with water and got some good effects although it became too fluid when the nib was fully saturated. My favorite effects were when the nib was still mostly dry.
I added black paint in an attempt to get a thicker effect.
Finally I used a bottle of india ink for fountain pens. This produced a good color and and flowed very well through the nib.
I just got a box of new pens!
New pens and extra nibs
I had been filling the Molotow pens with Liquitex acrylic ink but I wanted to try the Molotow One4All ink. Let me just say that there is no comparison. The Liquitex inks are transparent water based ink with good color. The One4All inks are smooth, fast drying, matte and very opaque. They are UV resistant and very permanent as well. Which is good, a lot of paint pens do not have archival quality ink. In fact I have had very bad luck with a few brands completely fading in moderate sunlight. I also have a long time gripe about Micron and similar pens not coming filled with enough ink or having crappy nibs that do not write easily. Then I found these and became very excited:
Where have you been my whole life?
These are replacement nibs for the Molotow One4All paint markers with PEN TIPS. It’s the same awesome permanent ink with a 1mm nib. In a refillable pen! Which means I can mix colors in the pen. Seriously, where has this been my whole life? And the pen tip writes VERY smooth. Very low drag, which is an issue that I feel is not addressed with other art pens. I require a pen to write very fast and it seems that archival pens are usually marketed with emphasis on nib size rather than smoothness. Only writing pens are designed to be low drag and fast on paper and these are usually filled with ink designed for speed, not for color fastness.
Look at it!
And FYI it could not be easier to switch out these nibs, you just pull out the original nib and insert the pen tip. Pump the pen a few times and the ink begins to flow. I will post more on my experiments with the pens later. The star out of this package is the Masterpiece 60mm marker. Look at this beast:
I guess this marker is designed for lettering/graffiti purposes, but I used it to make these:
UPDATE: Several people have asked, the pens came from ArtPrimo.com.
I pulled a book out of a box in my closet and flipped it open to this page. October 24th, 2009. I pulled out a few that I found interesting. Note the arrow pointing out the first drawing on the third row, this is the sketch I used for Number 368, which I completed a week later on Halloween.
Number 368, completed 10/31/09
These are some more paint pen ink drawings. I used Molotow empty markers 111EM and 211EM filled with the Liquitex acrylic ink. These are smaller than the other ink drawings I made with these pens. These are 2.5″ x 3.5″ inches each. I worked on this set on September 28th, 2012 around 5:50 am. I was working fast and they are un-numbered so they are probably out of order. These are 18 of my favorites from that morning.
This is a page from Tuesday, July 7th, 2009 at 12:24 pm. It is the first page of the book. I had just finished 354 and 355 and was working on 356 and 357. This was a small sketchbook, 5.5″ x 8.5″ it was a secondary sketchbook, one that got stuck in my bag and brought all over the place. Surprisingly, there is only one coffee stain on this page. It was was in circulation from 7/7/09 until 5/26/12.
Here are few I found interesting:
Some more ink drawings with purple. I am use the On The Run Soultip .3″ with Liquitex “acrylic ink” which comes in my favorite paint colors. This is Dioxazine Purple and Sap Green.
