I am enjoying doing some more Walt Kelly style drawings.

As I have said previously, I have to work from printed comics and magazines which leave me to only have finished drawings as examples. But I have spent years trying to study how I think he created his original drawing style.  Original pencil construction drawings just don’t exist. I think Walt Kelly inked directly over his original blue pencil drawings which therefore covered any of his original pencil drawings.

I’m practicing inking my drawings using a Kuretake Fountain Brush No. 8 brush pen and a Kuretake Fountain Brush No. 13 brush pen.

These Kuretake brush pens are nylon brushes and they normally use cartridges of ink filled with black, water-based Pigment ink.  For my work I am using Blick Black Cat India Ink and Platinum Fountain Pen Converters instead of Kuretake ink cartridges. I am really liking these tools for my inking drawings.

Walt Kelly in the 1940s , 1950s and 1960s did characters in comics along with Pogo and these drawings are based on Walt Kelly’s style of work.

I loved Walt Kelly’s way of inking characters. So I have been trying to learn his style.

Of course in those days, Kelly probably used  Winsor & Newton series 7 watercolor sable brushes, size 3.  I think he used some type of India Ink, but I have no idea what kind he used in those days. But the inking style I’m using is similar.

This crazy little guy looks like he was woken out of bed and went to shoot a burglar with his blunderbuss gun. Watch out Santa Claus !!

These were lots of fun and great practice for me.