I took Chloe Gendron's class in order to improve my skill and technique using dip pen and ink. I appreciated the PDFs that Chloe produced, in that it truly does help you focus and target improvement areas, and allows you to practice smarter.

I will also say that Chloe's class inspired me to purchase a few books to help me learn and draw inspiration from:

 

* Rendering In Pen and Ink - Arthur Guptill (started)

* Pen & Ink Drawing - Alphonso Dunn (not started)

* Pen & Ink Techniques - Frank Lohan (not started)

* Gustav Doré - Alix Paré & Valérie Sueur-Hermel (started...but it's gonna take a while!)

* Alphonse Mucha Masterworks - Rosalind Ormiston (not started)

 

All the studies I am showing here were done with dip pen and ink on sketch paper - a big mistake. Chloe even told us from the class that sketch paper isn't the best for wet medium and that the sharp pen nibs will tear the paper. Even though I feel the paper handled the ink fairly well, the poking and tearing...ugh. I should have used micron pens or switch to more expensive paper. I had to fight my inner cheapskate and the cheapskate won, but the art suffered as a result. Still...there were a few good lessons learned and I'm not too sad about learning them. I'll explain as I go.

Oh, one last note - sorry for the shadowy photos.

Here are some studies I did being guided by the class:

In this example, I'm simply just warming up to using a nib and discovering how to control the pen. Also focusing on getting varied line weight in one stroke.

First experience-taught tip: learn to work from right to left (I'm left handed) in order to prevent smudging. Also using a scrap piece of paper under my hand can keep my work clean and free of oopses.

Next I did some practice trying to use my forearm and elbow instead of my wrist so I could learn to draw smoother long lines like I see in Doré, Booth, and so many other masters. The bottom half of the page is simply values practice.

Second experience-taught tip: using sketch paper wastes ink. The black square was done with a brush and it was surprising how much the paper soaked up the ink like a sponge. Before I knew it, my brush was dry and I had to re-wet my brush sooner than expected (see the black square bottom left).

Here is some more pen and ink value studies, including some comparisons to ink wash at the bottom. Sorry it's a little dirty looking. I didn't spend a lot of energy on the photo so there's some really bad shadows.

Third experience-taught tip:  I consistently battled with little hairy fibers or clumps of soft paper on my nib. This sometimes created pretty frustrating problems when it came to clean lines - even with creating the best angle to hold the pen became a challenge. I could dip my pen and push a line, but soon thereafter, I could only get the nib to work by pulling (until I cleaned the nib, because it was stuffed with paper).

Taking inspiration of Doré and some other examples I found online, I tried to implement different techniques to quickly render some trees. Bottom Center is my favorite - the contrast of a light subject with a dark background and the brush painted leaves, but the Birch trees are nice too.

Here are some attempts at shape contouring and more texture usage. I know, I know the shadows from the camera. STOP MAKING ME FEEL BAD! (jk)(Fourth experience-taught tip?)

I struggled a lot with the sketch paper and dip pen. It really drove home the point of experience-taught tips #2 and #3, especially since I tried to first do an engraving style rendering of the berries and leaves...I should have used microns. It came out really sloppy. But I managed to pull off some good studies using Booth, Flagg and Moebius. I think I will add Moebius to my master's study queue. Fantastic!

My final study was Gustav Doré. The final experience-taught tip is...maybe erase your pencil lines before you submit a project ;). I still have a lot of learning to do! My drawing skills are not where I want them to be (horses, am I right?), my patience level is not where I want it to be (pencil marks, shadowy photos), and a lot more.

This was a very DEEP class, and it was very time consuming and involved, but I learned a lot!