America Grotesque. I was very loosely inspired by the prompt for this one. My thought process was a jumble of American Grotesque, to William Mortensen , to the definition of Grotesque, to creature and distorted, and then I though of Goya’s “el sueno de razon produce monstruos”, and here we are an an owl with some heavy Goya inspiration.
This one was another challenge to my skills. I work with watercolor often, so I wanted to try and use washes of ink, rather than going for markers. It worked out better than I thought, but it was a very different experience than working with watercolors. I also loved using a lighter tone of ink with a dip pen. Since I work with dip pens in calligraphy, that felt very comfortable. I may use my Nikko G to ink over Micros. It’s less portable, but I have more control. I’ve also never drawn an owl before, and don’t have much visual vocabulary for birds so it was fun to try and evoke a sense of fluffiness with the feathers. I hope you enjoy it!
Let me know if you like soft washes of tones to add value, or do you prefer hatching and texture to produce value?
-Rebecca
Pigma Micron Ink pens
Black and white ink
Princeton brushes
And a Nikko G dip pen
on 4x5.5" 100 lb paper
Artwork is available for sale