Japanese Brush Pens

Here are some shots of the brush pens I've been using since the eary eighties.

Only found in the stationary department of Japanese book stores. They cost ¥315. - about $3.50- but maybe more in the U.S. - Import tax you know.

I actually have some more expensive ones but they're not practical for carrying around.

Brush Pen Devil

I've been distracted lately with things non art or work related. It's good to get back to sketcking, practicing drawing and thinking about art things.

Drawing on paper again . Using a Moleskine sketchbook. The book has a buff colored paper , is well contructed and easy to carry around. Started just sketching a head to get started using a 4b graphite pencil .

I wanted to practice inking again using real ink. However the paper in the Moleskine book is a little soft to it causes the ink to bleed a bit and is to soft for a crow quill or other steel drawing pen point.

I was drawing this late last night so I was too lazy to dig out the Windsor Newton series 7 sable brushes for inking so I resorted to my Japanese brush pens.

I've been using these since around 1980. I found them at Kinokunya book store in Little Tokyo in Los Angeles.

They were made for Japanese to write in Kana . They are cheap and disposable but have a superior soft rubber point. Better than the expensive ones you can buy in art supply stores. The ink is VERY black and the point just gets pointier as the pen begins to wear. They are made by Pilot and I've NEVER seen them in an art supply store. I bought a mess of them the last time I went to Japan. They get marked up a bit if you buy them in the USA .

AS you can see in the drawing the pen behaves like a real brush. It reacts to pressure and direction and you don't have to dip it in ink or wash it out every so often lie a real brush.

I would still use a real brush and ink if I were to do something more finished but you can not beat it for sketchbook work! I'll post a pic of the pens later!

This drawing is about 6 inches high. September 5th , 2011.

-Lar

Mecca Girl Revisited II

Just coming back to this one to see where it goes. This is just a little tighter so it's just a progress report .

I've been really busy with commercial work so sometimes that really wears me down but also it gets me to do things a little tighter . Right now I'm waiting to get the go ahead on a project that's going to take all my time for the next week . But I can't start until I get the right concept approved. The longer they take to approve the shorter time I'll have to work on it.

I'll post it after the end of the month because for now I'm under a confidentiallty agreement.

It ought to be fun .

Remember to click on the imaage to get a bigger version.

-Lar

Mecca Girl Revisited

Well, This is a second stage of a sketch- Why do I do this? Because it's fun and it beats watching TV at night.

I really want to go back and revisit a lot of my sketches and develope them more. But I 'm torn between doing that and doing new sketches. The problem would be that I never do anything "Finished"

When I first started this blog I said I was going back to Pencil. Well obviously that changed . But at least the work here is not my professional , job related art.

So now for the particulars:

Drawn in Photoshop CS5 extended. Cintiq 21 inch Wacom tablet. Original file ( This one is cropped Jpeg) is 11 by 17 inches, 300DPI. ,RGB.

Mostly spatter brush with transfer turned on and pressure control on for opacity and flow.

More like painting in acrylic or oil.

-Larry

Mecca Girls

Okay, "Mecca Girls " is not my idea but an idea started by Christian Henesian who I drew in a previous post.

It's refering to girls how work out at the famous Gold's Gym in Venice ,California. So far I guess I've already drawn 3 of them . This is a quick one drawn at 11pm tonight. I can't say that it's an actual portrait or likeness because It doesn't really look like the person I think. More of an impression of the person's character.

Actually I've drawn a hand full of people that work out at Golds over the years. It's a great place for people watching. Much more intersting people to draw than hanging out at some diner or coffee shop. But I guess that depends on what part of town you hang out in .

Well at Gold's at least you also get to view some great physiques and not some flabby bellied trucker sitting down to have some pie and coffee at the local diner. And I know there are plenty of artist that just live to draw that type of crowd but it just isn't what I want to draw. As a matter of fact I was thinking about how I draw in my sketchbook as opposed other artists. Some sketch at a coffee shop while observing their model. I tend to observe my model , then go home and try to draw them from memory. People tend to move too much any way.

plus I don't get bogged down by what the person actually looks like or what they're doing.

-lar

Drawing day 2011

Here's a quick sketch I did just for Drawing Day. I did three. I just found out about it on Drawing Day from my friend Michael Lee who posted one of his drawings. There where hundreds of drawings posted but it seems like very few professionals posted anything. Maybe they didn't because it was giving away free art? Or maybe because it was world wide they wanted to display their best art? In any case there were hundreds of kid drawings, amature drawings, anime fan drawings, copied photograph drawings. Mostly it was just a fun thing to do!

I pretty much Draw everyday anyway, so why not?

Another thing- I guess I interpreted drawing day as a day where you draw so I post only things that I drew on that day. But I guess that's not the way it works because there are things on the site's gallery that you know some one worked on for more than a day. Not that I'm going to post things that I've slaved over because I really like to draw quickly and move on. Maybe come back and revisit some drawings .

That should be the reason for doing this anyway . Get some ideas out and see if anything calls for more exploring.

-Lar

Warrior of the Hyborean Age.

This came about when I was wondering what to draw for World Drawing Day. A friend said " Hey, Draw me! "

That was enough to get me going. I realize that because I just like the process of drawing al it takes is someone to make a request. What I liked about this one is that it fits the subject's personality ( at least self image) and it just developed naturally without too much labor or thought . It took about 20 or 30 minutes . Drawn in photoshop CS5 on a CIntiq 21 inch screen .

Fun!

-Lar