Illustration Class 4.28.2010

Old work, new materials, crazy fun times in illustration class... 

FIRST UP... 

a little revisit to this unfinished drawing from a few weeks ago; somewhere, somehow this is a part of one of my final (I am doing 2 or 3) Illustration narratives.

NEXT UP

So there have been a few materials that I have been itching to use for the past while; one of these is walnut ink. (easy to make? find out!) 

I learned about walnut ink (as well as other inks such as Iron Gall and the ubiquitous India) many years ago in the earlier days of my artistic education (and Modern Marvels), but never had I given much consideration to using it... I used India a lot back in the day, but gave it up in favor of a drafting ink (which technically IS an "India" ink... but whatever). But at the beginning of the semester I saw a few classmates working with Walnut ink and later found it was upon the suggestion of various instructors... my curiosity was, of course, piqued. 

No art store had real Walnut ink in stock. "WHERE," I ask myself, (and no one else) "are all these kids getting all this Walnut ink?!"

Weeks... nay, months go by and come to find out that my school art store sells it. 

Hiding in plain site.

I bought some...

...apparently some dude in Cambridge cooks up the stuff and sells it.

In the Fall, as others of you probably also have done, I have picked up the fallen walnuts, torn open the husks, had my hand stained for days, and wondered "I wonder what the heck this looks like on paper?"

...now is my chance! ;)

This was completely random... wound up looking like Ahab/Popeye's love child with a conehead.

A Lion!

Woman carrying child.

LASTLY (but not leastly ;)

The other material I have been wanting to try is gouache. Yes yes, I am an aspiring illustrator and I have NEVER used gouache before... I can barely spell it! I am not going to be as long winded about it as I was with Walnut ink, but rather just let these few progress pieces speak for themselves...

It's like (tube) watercolor, but opaque... ish.  A traditional illustrators medium.

All for now.