Momma Jay in grisaille

37/365

And now Momma Jay. She’s looking a little tired here after all the business with Jimmy Jay and the chimney. I can hardly blame her. I watched Steven Reddy’s Bluprint course called Dynamic Detail in Pen, Ink,& Watercolor. I’ve got my 1-ounce bottles, my Rotring Tikky and Uni-ball Vision pens, my Rapidograph ink, and my Canson Montval All-Media art books, and now I’m working to get the hang of ink washes.

Today I thought I’d show Momma Jay at the local beanery staring down a heavy duty cup of espresso. I wanted a foreground, middle ground, and background. Overall I’m happy that today’s drawing is a one-inch improvement over yesterday’s. Next time I’ll work to get the foreground object popping a little more.

I can see that I didn’t mix my 50% and 100% washes quite dark enough. I resorted to using Photoshop to pump up the contrast and clean up some errant drops of ink.

View fullsize

I’m trying to keep about 50% of the page white. My darks could be a little darker, and I’m going to work on drawing daintier hands for Momma.