Colorful Gestures and Messy Hatching

And the freedom to experiment.

Hey y’all, welcome to “Fishing with John,” where there ain’t no fish nor Johns to be found.

The last half of April, I found myself experimenting with materials and techniques. I played around with a more artful approach to layered gestures, by erasing the pencils inside the ink drawings. It’s fun having these ink sketches with colorful gestures swirling around them. The second time around, I played with adding mid tones with crosshatching. Personally, I prefer the simplicity of the spot black shadows of the first one, but it was worth experimenting. For these I used croquis.cafe videos 652 and 653.

I also got a little experimental with my inking drawing a photo of the wonderful french model Maureen. To capture the mood and lighting, I used some messy hatching and dry brush techniques.

last up, I did some cat sketches; both quick gestures and an ink drawing. As mentioned in my comics post, I have been trying to get back into using traditional dip pens. For this I used a B-6 calligraphy nib. I didn’t time myself, but I only dipped the nib 5 times.

I’m not super practiced with my hatching/crosshatching techniques (and trying to be quick) I ended up with a messy impressionistic effect that I don’t love. I can’t decide if I like it or if I hate it, but there it is. Honestly this is the part of “practicing art” that a lot of people don’t share: trying, playing, experimenting, and failing. However, all of that is part of improvement as an artist. I’m not particularly proud of everything in this set, but all of it adds to my growth and improvement is an artist and is part of my journey. Thank you for being a part of that! I think it’s important for us to be authentic with ourselves and our audience about the trial and error of artistic growth.

It is better to try something new and produce something mediocre then to get stuck in a rut, only doing what you’re comfortable with.

Hopefully in the mid month, I’ll have some more, better looking stuff to share, but in the meantime, thank you for fishing with John!

-Calvin