This was my 4th InkTober. Last year I did ink wash portraits and I really learned a lot, but I also spend a grotesque amount of time on it. Although I loved doing the ink washes, and the end result, I really didn’t enjoy doing the underdrawings. I was doing them with grids and was spending more time fine tuning them, then I did on the ink washes. It felt like copying, not drawing, which I in essence it is. Using a grid can be great when the likeness have to be spot on, like a family portrait, but for me it became a bad habit I didn’t enjoy and I almost haven’t drawn since December.
So it was time for change; I still wanted to do portraits but without the grid and faster, trying not to be too fussy about likeness;
-Block in in pencil, ink with fountain pen
-Draw fast
-No grids, only tool for measuring is my pencil
-Shade with hatching trying to use as few strokes as possible
I quickly switched to finelines because the fountain pen was skipping a lot when drawing on top of the pencil in my very cheap 20x20cm sketchbook. Time wise it was a disaster again this year but I did loose the bad habit using a grid when doing the underdrawings. Blocking in instead of doing a more or less a finished contour drawing as an underdrawing and hatching with as few lines as possible where a limited success. I did get a little faster and the hatching a bit lighter and looser but not much. But all that said, I do like the style with the blue underdrawing and ink that developed over the month.
I just picked up a book about drawing portraits hoping that the method it uses can help me further, but I probably need professional help to fix this so I’ll also start looking for portrait drawing classes with live models.
My usual ramblings/comments to the daily drawings are under the gallery.