Currently Browsing: Nideggen 25 articles
Thinking about White Hair on Toned Paper
There’s nothing finished in this study of a man with white hair and a beard. It’s me noodling around experimenting with how to get the values of white hair on toned paper. I’m working in a handbound journal made with Zerkall Nideggen (it has a lovely fiber fleck of texture throughout). I guess paper nostalgia […]
Fudenosuke Pen and Toned Paper
I don’t know if I can ever fully explain why I like working on toned paper. Maybe it is just easy on the eyes. I know one year at the Minnesota State Fair I showed up with bright white paper (unusually white paper, not like anything I normally use) and my eyes were giving […]
Pushing a Sketch
It’s very rare that I don’t finish a sketch. If something goes awry during the sketching I typically keep pushing just so I can see what’s possible. I learn a lot at moments like that. On this date I was using a granulating blue on a pen sketch of a little black dog. I usually […]
OK, I Guess Sometimes I Do Doodle…
A couple months ago I seemed to be living through my own Brendan Gleeson film festival. On this day I was sketching without glasses (if everything is double vision isn’t blurred vision an evening out or smoothing out of the lines?) without stopping the movie. That meant I had to hold things in my mind, […]
Fun Sketching Hair Part 1
I can’t help myself. I love to sketch hair. Here’s a sketch from a 19th century photo. I only exaggerated only a little, really. Volumes of hair. Sweeping ever upward. I love it. I wonder if he also wore a hat and what the wearing of a hat might do to his hairdo? Despite the […]
Using More Than One Type of Pen
The mood we want to achieve in a finished illustration influences what type of pen we choose to work with—what type of line we want to express. It’s obvious when I started to sketch this I was pulled by interest in the facial hair and short hair on the head, as well as the height […]
The Right Pen with the Right Paper?
I have spent years telling students that there is no perfect paper. There is no perfect pen. That’s still true! Why write today that there is a right pen with the right paper? Because sketching, if you’re going to do it all the time, should be, in fact needs to be, fun. And one of […]
Paper Matters: Is There A Right Paper?
For artists making works on paper media selection and method of application of course both matter, but too often artists forget that paper matters too. Have you been seduced by an art supply catalog into purchasing a substandard, non-artist grade paper? I see it all the time in my student’s questions. They’ve spent money on […]
Protected: When Your Favorite Shows Disappear…
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Protected: How Do I Keep a Journal or a Sketchbook?
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