Next Steps

OK...just about ready for color. NO, as I slap myself, it IS ready for color! At this point with every piece I could go on and on with the detail. If this were to remain a pen & ink drawing I would spend a few more hours – maybe days - getting everything just right, but since it will be colored I had better stop. After adding the color I can always go back with the pens to touch it up here and there.

Comparing these views to the previous ones you can see that I’ve added a couple of thousand more dots to it. My stippling technique is a little hard to explain. I’ll work on the piece in segments...going back and forth from one section to the other, all the time trying to keep everything in balance regarding density and strength. I’ll work a section with the .25 pen, keeping everything pretty consistent and orderly...meaning dot placement and strength, and then with the same pen I’ll get a little crazy. I call it “planned randomness.” I’ll grab the pen at an angle (as opposed to my first work with the pen pretty much upright) and go at it in a more haphazard and heavy handed manner. Angling the pen slightly will make the marks a little irregular, and I’ll place the marks when looking at the piece from my peripheral vision. At this stage I do not want to consciously place the marks with any sort of precision. I want them to be random. In the deeper or more shadowed areas I’ll then have a go with the .35 and .50 pens to give the drawing even more strength.

And finally I’ll go back with the finer pen to fill in any spots that need touching up. This last step is very precise. It’s amazing what one little dot in the right spot can do.

So now comes the color...the hardest part for me. Being colorblind doesn’t help...and having no training complicates things even further. There. My excuses are made. Time to break out the pencils.