My classical cartoon inking practice is moving along. Going from mostly digital cartooning back to traditional classical cartooning is an adjustment for me. As I have said before, the tools and techniques are different. I like working both digitally and classically, and it is great to practice the ways that I first learned many years ago. I’m getting more confident using a brush for classical cartoon drawing with ink. Today, I started out doing a straight brush ink drawing as a warm-up. At the moment, I am working with a “Kuretake No 8 brush pen” with “Blick Black Cat India Ink” . NOTE: I am not promoting any specific art products, but I know that, like myself, many readers are curious about the tools and supplies other artists are using. So again, take this information as you choose or not.
When working in monochrome, black and white, or in varying tones of only one color, I have always enjoyed having gray tones in my cartoon inking. My first attempts, today, to use toned inking using a brush fountain pen with “Noodles’s Gray Ink” straight out of the bottle. I also tried using a “Pentel Art Brush XGFL-137 “Gray.
As you can see, my first attempt is 70-80 % gray shade which is way too dark. I think I really want 10 -20% gray shade. Gray tones in monochrome cartoon drawings are mostly used to add depth and solid forms. Gray ink often starts out dark towards 90% black when applied to the paper. It drys lighter over time, but it’s tricky. So toning my desired inking requires some testing and adjustments. For my own working, I keep a piece of test paper, next to my drawing board, that matches the same paper type that I’m using for the final art project. If it doesn’t look right on the identical test sample paper, then you can be sure that you aren’t going to like it on your actual artwork.
I quickly realized that I needed to be able to control my gray tones to establish the desired percentage of gray shades that I want.
As much watercolor painting as I’ve done, my cartooning brain must have been asleep. Gray Scale of black India ink is done the same way as black watercolor painting. Some times I need to reread one of my own articles : About Value Scales . Gray ink out of a bottle or provided as Gray in a “Pentel Art Brush” only produces a single value shade and this is not the best way to manage value scale cartoon inking. I could use a set of predefined gray scale pens like Tombow Grayscale Markers , but adjusting my normal black India ink with different amounts of water is also a good approach.
If multiple shades are needed in a single drawing, it is easy to create a small set of diluted gray shade amounts in a small watercolor palette tray. This method helps me to “learn” the desired dilution needed to reach the wanted gray shades.
When I want to do some gray shade inking, I dip a clean brush into the diluted ink puddle and test some on my test paper. Sometimes the gray shade is the desired shade I want to use, sometimes it’s too light or too dark. Usually it’s too dark and I need to add some additional water to the ink. After wiping my brush clean on a cloth, I dip the brush back into the adjusted diluted ink puddle and test the gray shade on my test paper. It may take repeating this process a few times but eventually I get to my desired gray scale. For example, 10 – 20 % gray shade is mostly water with a very tiny amount of actual ink. It takes practice and patience, but that is the way with learning most things.
Hurrah !! More to follow next time.