Inking the summer skies
A week after my previous post and the top two panes of the window are now more or less complete - I won’t know whether more inking is needed on that area until I’ve completed the skies outside the window, the early stages of which you can see in today’s pictures.
The two images on the left show the development of the summer skies: far more shading is needed at the moment, especially within the cloud which needs a lot more depth. The picture on the right shows a close-up of the stipples in this area. Click on the thumbnails for a closer look.
At this stage the early worries about whether or not I’m putting too much ink on and destroying everything are gone, and the biggest issues are different. The main thing to deal with is the eye strain, looking at something so small through a magnifying glass, and the frustration of slow progress while every stipple needs to be in almost exactly the right place. It has been a long time since I drew anything quite so detailed, and I had forgotten just how demanding it is. Still, it’s begun now and I am anxious to find out how it’s going to look.
The one thing I’m fairly pleased with at this stage is the overall composition, and I’m glad I spent so long getting that right. At the moment I’m uncertain exactly what I’m going to put in the foreground, but my early idea is to put in floorboards and perhaps mosses. I will have to take more photographs for that stage. What I’m doing at the moment is continuing across the top part of the summer skies, while darkening the clouds on the left, but not too much, as I want there to be a complete contrast between what is through the window, and what is around the window.
| Home | About the Artist | Contact | Galleries | Subscribe to Blog |