TIM BAKER

This session was all about ink. Several fountain pen ink varieties from iron gall ink aka Diamine Registrar’s blue/black ink, Rorher & Klingner’s Sketchink ‘Lotte’ Black ink and my regular Indian inks but with new flex nibs (Zebra G and Nikko G) for my dip pen. The idea was to use them in my JinHao x750 fountain pen, but had feed problems so did some ‘pen surgery’ in the session to swap nibs back to the original. I was even going around asking if anyone had a hammer (unlike the song they weren’t that popular).

(To those wanting to put a G nib in a JinHao fountain pen it’s simple: hit it with a hammer! You need to flatten the curve of the nib, and so what my Dad calls the ‘Irish wrench’ comes into play. I found it not so great in practice, as I’ll detail later.)

I love the new nibs and inks though, as you can see from the two iron gall Diamine brush pieces above, and the swooping 5 minute drawing with loads of motion below. I like the cubist/Naum Gabo nature of the brush piece above, but you need to be sparing with the registrar’s ink.

Iron gall ink has a funny nature, made from iron salts and tannic acid and it starts out one colour (a temporary dye so you can see the ink) then oxidises on the paper and darkens. So a little goes a long way. It is one of the ancient inks and has been in use from the 5th century so right up my street on my ancient materials kick! It’s called Registrar’s Ink because marriage certificates and other legal documents have to be signed in it, because of it’s permanence and longevity. Although it’s permanent it is not properly waterproof, it is ‘water resistant’ which means the marks won’t completely wash away but it will still bleed some ink.

I had some problems during the session, knocking over some of the ink, pen problems and really not digging some of the poses – hence the writing on ‘Negative/Positive’. That was an experiment not just with dark/light but also showing the contrast between brush and the dip pen – yes with the new Nikko G flex nib. And reflected the mixed feelings I was having at the time.

You might be confused by the name – thinking the model looks familiar and is called Megan. Well like the previous week’s Lola/Rose I was told a long time ago she was Megan and recently found she is called Gabriella. So in the archives she will be known as Megan but here is Gabriella.

*who knows gif*

Didn’t completely leave watercolour alone, above is a uncharacteristically muted watercolour and pen piece – I think this is using the fountain pen, it’s hard to tell unless I vary the line. I am experimenting with softer, less contrast and gentle colour pieces so I can work on my tonal range. I feel I am a little too brash with my colour and tonality sometimes.

And I used some watercolour in the moody piece featured at the top and below to accent the Diamine ink where I wanted it to stay closer to the original blue. I think the conte crayon, brush and ink combo works well to get a sculptural feel, with a pale background wash similar to one of Lola/Rose but I hope that crayon doesn’t disappear when I fix it!