Pen and Ink

Like many of my drawings this was inspired by a vintage photo out of my collection, the face anyway. I like to use watercolor paper to draw on with ink but always hard to find one with the right tooth. Too much and it snags and ruins things and too little and might as well use bristol board or something. This is Bienfang paper, about 80 lb I think. Another good choice is Acquarello made by Fabriano. I cut them down to 8 X 10 or another popular photo size because its cheaper and easier to find a premade

mat and frame for the rare one that I might decide to hang on the wall for a while.

This picture just done in the last few days, mostly using the watercolor pencils and ink. In the past I have been fond of the prismacolor wc pencils but last month I did some impulse buying and got a 120 color set of Faber-Castell pencils. Sooooo many colors which is probably a bad thing since working with a "limited pallete" is probably the thing to do to learn and improve but if it wasn't for people like me the art manufactures wouldn't make so much money. This was inspired by one of the old photos I collect. I had an album with several pictures of the same couple in it. In one they are in the car, man in front and woman in the back both looking out, one of my favorite pictures or group of pictures because this couple just go together so well.

Princess of the Lake

A second drawing, one that I actually finished today. If I waited a day I might decide not to post it but what the heck. Again its mostly watercolor pencil and the Neocolor. My scanner ( or the operator) is not reproducing color real well. Her cheek in the scan looks really dark but not so in the drawing. I did a larger one like this that I liked better but so did my daughter and she wanted it so it's gone. About vintage

photos I want to pass along to anyone who also enjoys them a website I enjoy. WWW. Shorpy.com published vintage photos every day. Mostly they are available other places but he finds them and puts them up in one place. If you like old photos you can end up spending many hours there.

My first ever post here is a drawing of my grandfather who is long gone, this done from memory and one of the few photos I have left. Its a mixture of inks and water media including water color pencil and Caran D Arche Neocolor "pastels" Neocolor is pretty much a water souluable crayon, neat to work with and capable of some pretty cool effects. There are other watercolor crayons, most that I have tried are good but this is my favortie.