A pigment's progress

Today I got a chance to do what I really love. Inking is one of my true loves. The feeling I get when that brush hits the paper is hard to describe. I like the feel of the brush tip on the page. I like the smell of the ink and the look of black ink on white Bristol Board! I am so thankful GOD (and here I AM thinking of the Christian GOD, Yaweh) has given me this thing to do. It's an experience like no other in my book. It's a thrill to be alive when this sort of thing happens!

Not many, I suppose, wax poetic about the art of inking, but I have to tell the world (or whoever may read this): I love inking!



Artwork © James E. Lyle

So what you see here is not the brush part of the inking process. It's the pen part. For years I've done it this way. I outline everything that needs outline, I mark the areas that will get filled in with an "x" (or if the area is small a dot) and then later go back and fill it all in with a fine watercolor brush (a 2 or a 3, although I used to use a 6 until Joe Rubenstein asked me if I was "going to paint a wall with that?"). Anyway, I used to feel like I was cheating with this process. Until I read that it's pretty common, and saw some others doing the same. That's not to say I won't sometimes use a brush to outline, but usually I do pen work first then drop in with the brush. There are things that I can do with a brush that a pen won't do. The nice folds in fabric, particularly at right angle bends are best done with a brush and nothing else.



Artwork © James E. Lyle

I am beginning to feel drunk with the power of this blog! So here's another image. This one is the final image created for Tim Chandler. You can see a bit where I've modified the pen work with the brush (besides simply filling in the black areas). I'm pretty proud of this one. Nice story telling, good composition…yep a good piece.

But I really should get back to work.