Coloured Pencil and Ink WIP

Hay Bales, Work In Progress

Ink on Stonehenge

I love line and as a result I love drawings done in pen and ink. I haven't done much pen and ink work lately so I thought it was time to do a little something. This is how the drawing looks now. The next step will be to add some colour with my coloured pencils. I wanted this piece to be pared down and simple so I am not including other elements such as trees, etc.

I love the look of gathered up hay - stooked hay, square bales, or round bales. I love them all. Probably the most time consuming part of this piece was working out the composition of the hay bales in various sketches. Which way to turn the bales and where should the light source be? And oh yippee, drawing ellipses! Here is a picture of some of my sketches.

I have used technical pens (Staedtler brand) to create the ink drawing. While I like working with fountain pens and quills, I find it easier to work with technical pens. You just don't get the surprises you get when working with a quill pen and an ink bottle! Quill tips do allow you to change your line width in a single stroke but this requires practice to get consistent results (and I am out of practice) and in this small piece such an effect isn't what I wanted.

If you love pen and ink work, I highly recommend the classic book entitled Rendering In Pen and Ink by Arthur L. Guptill. The original version was published in 1930 and later reissued in 1976 and 1997. This book is the ultimate resource for someone looking to learn pen and ink techniques. I have spent many many hours pouring over the 300 pictures and practicing what is taught. Arthur L. Guptill was an artist, architectural renderer, architect, teacher and writer. If you love architectural renderings then this book is for you. There is lots of other stuff too. I especially like the section on rendering trees in pen and ink. The picture of Thomas Fogarty's pen and ink trees on page 132 is one of my favourites in the book.

In anticipation of this wee pen and ink hay bales piece, I snapped some photos of hay bales in a near by field. I put them on my computer so I could look at them for inspiration and information while I drew. Here are a few of the photos that I used.