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2025-01-09
Bog body struck a note with their post "thoughts on ink" – I think we're on similar paths.
Mostly I wanted to send a "thank you for writing this" to them, and a confirmation that I feel the same. @bogbody: I'd be happy to hear from you.
First and foremost, I'm sketching and painting for myself.
Realizing this truely made me fearless.
So what if I screw up a sketch or this or that line ain't perfect, if the proportions of something aren't 100% spot-on. I don't sketch for praise, for a gallery, for Instagram, or to make money.
Every stroke of my pen brings me joy. Me sketching is more about the act of sketching itself than about the finished picture. Of course, if some nice picture comes out of it, I might even hang it up in the appartment for a couple of months, but that is not the goal. 99% of the stuff I make stays in my sketchbook, the book closed, and I might look at the sketches once or twice a year.
Small mistakes can often be corrected or incorporated – when they can they're not mistakes anymore, they're learning moments. Being critical and realizing mistakes helps me get better.
Even if a mistake can't be corrected: There is no problem with mistakes. It's irrelevant if I "waste" a couple of sheets of paper in the process, no one will judge me if I don't.
Fearlessness is extremely freeing.
This lends itself very well to the choice of tools that I share with bog body: I love sketching with ink. For me its a relatively cheap fountain pen and waterproof black ink most of the time. Every stroke is a commitment as there is no way to remove a stroke once it is done. I do like combining that with a pencil for shading – when I'm not cross-hatching with the fountain pen – but I almost never do pencil outlines first, only to "commit" with ink later.
One "trick" (?) i recently learned is that I can use a water-tank brush (basically a cheap plastic brush where the handle is a water tank, you squeeze the handle gently to wet the brush - they're mostly used for aquarells) and fill it with dilluted black ink to produce greys and shade with that. Since my ink is waterproof once it is dry, I don't smear the created outlines and I can use the brush multiple times to layer the light greys to create darker shades.
I haven't used this much yet but it is a good trick to know as it makes for very compact and non-messy travel setups: Paper, fountain pen, water-brush preloaded with dilluted ink.
Over time I've realized that I tremendously enjoy extremely simple toolsets.
(Note that these are three art sets, not one)
All of these are quite cheap to aquire, light-weight, compact. But more importantly none of them introduce paralysis from complexity. I just start. Bog body puts it well when they comment on digital painting: "if i was using pen & paper i would have a drawing by now!". For me it's the same with too many colors in any medium.
Having fewer tools in front of me gets me going and the act of sketching gives me tremendous joy. Picking the "right" brush or color doesn't give me joy.
Because there are less tools in front of me, I become much more intimately acquainted with them and I really learn how to use them in their intended as well as in more creative ways: Simplicity creates mastery.
We've largely forgotten to spend time with a tool and really understand how to use it to its full potential. We're spoilt by choice (and consumerism) and while buying lots of things may be good for the economy and create a brief dopamine kick, which fountain pen or what range of brushes I use is largely unrelated to how good the drawings / paintings I create are. The tools are rarely the limiting factor, my mastery is.
My father-in-law spend multiple months painting his aquarells with only one (relatively large but pointy) brush. Two things: One, I don't see the "lack" of brush variety use in those paintings. Two: Limiting himself for a while objectively made his brush use better since.
Importance of quality of art supplies is debatable. Being a hobby user I'm not benefiting much from the highest quality of pens, brushes, pencils or paints. Although I do admit that good quality brushes are notably better, they do not change the quality of my paintings.
I believe being aware of this difference is important.
However I believe that there is a minimum quality, below which a tool really holds me back. For example, my wife and I found a set of color pencils the other day and decided to give them a go. Of course they do their job, but the "lead" breaks very easily, meaning we constantly need to sharpen the pencils again and interrupt the sketching. This is wasteful, no fun and breaks the flow.
On the other hand, my cheapest fountain pen creates among the finest lines of all my pens and after some time fine-tuning the nib to make it less scratchy, its become a great asset to have.
There is no way to un-break the leads of the cheap color pencils, but I was able to bring the fountain pen above that quality threshold. It still is no great pen, but it isn't limiting me anymore.
We live in a world where more features are generally seen as an improvement on nearly everything. You can buy sets of basically any artistic medium that come with a dozen varieties of any color. What's the point? Doesn't the whole act mutate into paint-by-numbers exercise? For me I'd spend more time thinking – worrying – about what color is the "right" one than I spend painting.
I oppose the "more is better" stance. "Just enough is better"
Accepting and working with – not against! – given limitations can elevate us.
Anders Zorn created stunning art with just yellow ochre, ivory black, vermillion and titanium white. Look him up.
Albrecht Dürer created amazing drawings in ink by utilizing cross-hatching, as did basically all of the old masters.
Inspired by limited palettes, currently my mint tin of aquarells contains only five colors: Carmine, Indian Gold, Ultramarine and an additional Burnt Sienna. Since Ultramarine and Indian Gold don't mix into vibrant greens and I do a bit of nature paintings, I've added Sap Green. Five colors that give me all the primaries, a ton of greens and browns, but also oranges, purples and neutral grey.
I'd like to point out Nick Stewart who's been exploring fountain pen inks and their creative potential in art for ten years now, https link below. Truly an eye-opening moment when I discovered what he does.
Bog Body mentiones they feel awkward to call anything they make art. I can relate. I do sketches, drawings and sometimes a painting. I leave it to other people to decide whether any of that is art. Ultimately "art" is just a label that requires an audience to recognize – but as I said in the beginning: I do this for noone but myself.
=> bog bodys initial post "thoughts on ink" | Nick Stewart and his explorations of ink and bleach
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