Expressive Ink Drawing

Expressive Ink Drawing of Molly Moo Cow

If I’ve not mentioned it before, in addition to being an artist and a businesswoman, I teach art as an adjunct faculty member at Rocky Mountain College of Art and Design and at the Art Student League of Denver as well as online Art History and Art Appreciation classes for the Colorado Community College System. All that combined keeps me very busy, but I do occasionally carve out time to make art for myself. 

One such occasion occurred after I had given a demonstration to my Life Drawing Two students on expressive ink drawings. This assignment involves drawing with India ink and a stick. In pre-pandemic times, I would provide the sticks to my students as I live near a nature preserve and have gathered a variety of shapes and sizes for their use in class. However, because of the pandemic I was teaching via zoom and so could only show them the sticks and demonstrate how to draw with them using the ink, then they had to forage for their own natural drawing tool (aka… a stick). 

Because our life drawing class was through zoom, we were not able to use live models, so the students had to work from videos of models posing or use photographs. I didn’t have an image of model handy when demonstrating so I opted to use a photograph of my dog Molly. Her full name is Molly Moo Cow, because the liver and white coloration and patterning of her coat reminds us of a cow, hence the name Molly Moo Cow! 

In any case, for this demo Molly was my reference and it was great fun rendering her. The key thing to remember when drawing with a natural tool like a stick is that you need to first relinquish control and any thought of perfectionism as the stick has a mind of its own (so to speak). Next you need to embrace the irregularity of the marks that come from the stick. The line weight variation that comes from drawing with the stick gives the drawing energy and life which can often be lost in a slowly rendered drawing. Once the subject, in this case Molly, is drawn then value is added with a paintbrush. You can create a whole range of values by adding water to the ink. It’s a great exercise for letting go and drawing more expressively. I highly recommend it for folks who are interested in experimentation!