While you are here – please check out my home page!

 

 

INTRODUCTION

Over recent years, I have become more and more interested in the use of ink on paper, after seeing what others have so creatively been able to produce with this intriguing medium.  I feel now is a good time to expand my repertoire as an abstract artist, in the use of other mediums and materials. With this thought in mind, I recently had purchased a set of bottles of ink with the intention of setting about using them, only to discovery, that I needed a lot more knowledge and I also needed to develop new artistic skills to be able to use them effectively.

So when I saw this opportunity to take up a one-off session with Marco Luccio to ‘dip my toe’ into the world of ink and paper, I couldn’t resist doing so!  Marco Luccio, a formidable Australian artist himself and avid user of ink, ran a 3 hour session on ‘Sketchbook, Travel Studies Techniques and Frank Hodgkinson:  The Nude, Crowds and Interiors‘ and it was so much fun.  Marco Luccio demonstrated various approaches to drawing with ink on paper, using a feather, stick, brush and even just our fingers.  He provided a series of powerful and expressive drawings of classic, common and natural subject matter (Marco Luccio 2015) of famous artists, for us to use as form of inspiration, in order that we could become familiar with the techniques demonstrated by himself, and those evident in the sketches produced during the session.

 

ABOUT INK DRAWING NO. 1 “Goat”

NB:  Sketches above on the left being white pieces of paper glued onto the page are the sketches provided by Macco Luccio.  My ink sketches on paper are to the right above and below which I did in my new Travel Journal.

In recreating the ‘goat’ we were instructed to dip a feather quill into a small tube of Schnincke Acrylic Ink.  With the tip of the feather quill, I found myself etching a way on the Travel Journal page with gusto!  It was the very first time I had used ink and paper in such a way and I found it strangely liberating.  Being able to just push the ink around onto the paper without being confined by set lines and space was very enjoyable for me.  The sketches are not master pieces for sure but I could feel that it was certainly a practice I was going to engage in further down the track in my artistic endeavours.

 

ABOUT INK DRAWING NO. 2 “Nude”

NB:  Sketches above on the left being a white piece of paper glued onto the page are the sketches provided by Macco Luccio.  My ink sketches on paper are to the right above and below which I did on paper provided by Macco Luccio.

Re-creating the nude was tricky for me but once again, I very much enjoyed to process.  Again, we used the feather quill to etch our nudes onto the paper and then we used our fingers, dipped in ink and a little water to add colour, depth and interest.  Using my finger instead of a paint brush gave me, a great sense of freedom.  I worried little about the correctness of the forms and just enjoyed to process of experiencing new ways of being able to apply the ink to the paper.

 

ABOUT INK DRAWING NO. 3 “Interiors”

NB:  Sketches above on the left being a white piece of paper glued onto the page are the sketches provided by Macco Luccio.  My ink sketches on paper are to the right above and below which I did on paper provided by Macco Luccio.

The interiors task was quiet challenging, lots going on that had to be re-produced.  But once again, it was important to not try to reproduce the image verbatim but to just use the image provided as a source of inspiration and another opportunity to experience ink, colour ink and paper.  The use of water to assist in the washes and diluting of the inks proved to be also a very interesting part of the process of formulating the image.  I came to understand, for me at least, that working with ink meant you needed to adopt an attitude that it had a mind of its own and at times, as an artist there maybe a need to give way to its control of my work – well until I gain a much greater understand of its medium qualities, at least.

 

ABOUT INK DRAWING NO. 4 “Crowds”

NB:  The sketch above on the left being a white piece of paper glued onto the page is a sketch provided by Macco Luccio.  My ink sketch on paper is to the right above and below which I did in my new Travel Journal.

Re-producing the crowd scene process, offered me another chance to experience paper type, form, colour and ink application.  I really enjoyed seeing and feeling how the ink responded, when collected by the feather quill and then applied to the paper.  I also enjoyed working out where to place certain colours and at what strength of colour to apply them to the paper.

 

MATERIALS USED

• Travel Journal – Hahnemuhle Fine Art D&S, for pencil, ink and charcoal, natural white, sketch book suitable for journaling, 140g/m2 80 pages, size A4.  Has hard cover and sets of pages can be removed without the rest of the pages becoming unstable within the binding.  Very portable size.
• Schnincke Acrylic Ink – has 36 brilliant highly pigmented liftfast colours and 12 effect colours.  Suitable for drawing pens, calligraphy, brush and airbrush techniques. Comes in 28ml glass jar with dropper.  Is waterproof when dry. A large number of the bright colours are glazed or semi-glazed.  They can be made opaque by adding a slight quantity of extremely opaque aerocolour Professional colour supra white, without being made any brighter or losing their tinting strength.  Aerocolour Professional adheres particularly well to all sorts of papers and cardboards as well as the usual, non-absorbent surfaces such as film, hard plastics and after appropriate preliminary treatment, metal.  Link to Aero Colour Professional – finest airbrush colours PDF Chart: http://www.schmincke.de/fileadmin/downloads/AEROCOLOR.pdf
• Bird Feather – random bird feather used as instrument to apply ink to paper via the quill part of the feather and/or the feathering part of the instrument.

 

CONCLUSION

Marco Luccio’s 3 hour session on ‘Sketchbook, Travel Studies Techniques and Frank Hodgkinson:  The Nude, Crowds and Interiors’ I found very enjoyable and advantageous.  What I took away with me after attending his session – was just enough confidence to move forward into using ink on paper.

Over the years, I have found that taking time out to engage in an artistic process is very therapeutic.  It has helped and continues to help me de-stressed and assists in clearing my mind of any negative thoughts.  It also gets me inspired to go about planing and putting into action, new projects that will have positive effects on my sense of wellbeing. Thank you Art…

NB:  To view my Abstract Painting Gallery, please click here. Whilst you are here – please check out my home page! 

My Art Therapy Journey – A window into the soul of an Abstract Artist through art therapy and storytelling…by Karen Robinson – Abstract Artist/Blogger/Writer/Photo-taker