Tag: Brushpen

Horse and young woman in kimono under Sakura

I found horse and young woman in kimono under Sakura, another beautiful work by Taiwanese artist Jung Shan:
Reference photo showing the artwork hung on a wall and a label underneath with the artist's name and a QR code
Although I have some rice paper, I am far from comfortable with it, and the ratio and size wasn’t what I wanted, so I sketched on my 30×30 cm watercolor pad:
Light pencil sketch on a large square watercolour pad
I used a Pentel black ink brushpen for the outline and strong parts, and was happy with how her faced turned out, compared to the pencil sketch:
Inking in black of the horse, woman and kimono
I used sepia watercolor and a fine brush for the tree branch and blossoms:
Branches and blossoms painted in sepia
With more sepia, some lamp black watercolor, and a regular brush, I painted the horse and the woman’s skin:
Horse and woman's face painted with a mix of sepia and black
And finally, I used quinacridone rose to paint the blossoms and the woman’s lips, and used what I had left from my sepia wash for the kimono, and the background. The rest of the kimono was painted with lamp black watercolor:

Here is the final version (23×30 cm), framed:
Final artwork in a white frame

Samurai

This is ‘Speed III‘ by Jung Shan, who, as far as I understand, draws digitally and then adds actual ink brush strokes :
Reference artwork in black and white: a focused-looking warrior with a long flying ponytail, feet wide apart, wields a sword. There are movement strokes.

I sketched the samurai on a Moleskin watercolor book (21×13 cm):
Rough pencil sketch in a wide watercolour drawing book. My pencil is seen on the table.

I used a Pentel brushpen for the black strokes and cold grey Faber-Castell brushpens for the rest:
Inking with a black Pentel brushpen and cold grey Faber-Castell brushpens for the rest of the clothes, face and ponytail.

Then I erased the pencil marks, cut diagonally one of my cheap brushes, prepared a lamp black wash, took a deep breath and stroke:
Large black ink strokes. the brush is visible on the side resting on the porcelain palette. I trimmed it diagonally.

Reproduction of Moebius’ ‘Le garage hermétique de Jerry Cornelius’

I discovered Moebius rather recently. Stéphane raved about him, Virginie was a fan. So when she suggested we all meet in Toulon at the occasion of an exhibit of Moebius’ work, it was a done deal. I was fascinated. All these intricate and thin lines giving life to surrealistic worlds, people and creatures!

From one book, I asked Stéphane to choose a few images he liked and this page was my favourite. ‘Le garage hermétique de Jerry Cornelius’:
Reference illustration. A flying character dressed in black with a bald head looks down from above at a city under attack from anti-matter magma rays

I sketched a rather precise version in pencil on an A4 white sheet:
Rather precise pencil sketch on white paper

Using a Pentel Brushpen, I started inking the straight lines (and later the flying figure as well as the black area around the title at the top):
Inking in black of the rays

The rest of the outline I did with a 0.05 mm Uni-ball pin pen:
Inking finished and pencil erased

Tada! Gift ready and framed. The resulting drawing was 16×21 cm:
Final piece framed in natural wood. My hand is holding the frame and my left thumb is visible.

Other work from late December 2017

I doodled a few Moebius’ figures to test how badly black ink bleeds against alcoholic ink. Maybe I didn’t let it dry enough, but the Uni-ball pin pens supposedly don’t bleed but they did:
Two sketches of caped characters, one standing from behind, another in the water pushing a skiff
Sketch of a levitating character with spread out arms, dressed in a long billowy dark blue robe, a headdress that looks like antlers, and two large orbs at the ears.
A bit frustrated, I continued with a Moebius’ figure of a queen in heaven, part of an illustration of Dante’s Divine Comedy, but this time I used a Pentel Brushpen and watercolor:
Black ink and coloured alcohol markers drawing of a madonna on clouds with joined hands, wearing a crown and a halo full of stars
This one I liked doing very much! I used a Black ink Pentel Brushpen for the black background and a white Posca pen for the zebra:
Zebra painted in white over a black rectangle