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Wildlife Art by Michael Kensinger (1 Viewer)

Timberdoodler

Active member
Although I'm a new forum member, I thought I would share some of my artwork, done in my favorite medium: pen and ink.

Here we have Blue-Winged Teal, Eastern Chipmunk, Myrtle (Yellow-Rumped) Warbler, and a Ring-Necked Pheasant.

Being 21, I am excited about an upcoming artshow featuring just my work at the Tyrone Area Hospital here in Pennsylvania. It will be my first ever art show, and hopefully be the start of a great career.

I accomplished a great dream of mine during my senior year in High School by winning Best of Show in the Federal Junior Duck Stamp Competition for Pennsylvania, and placing top 10 nationally.

I had been trying for this since 6th grade.

Hopefully, great things will come my way in 2006, and some new doors will open for me as an artist. I intend on entering the adult Federal Duck Stamp Competition for the first time this year.
Thanks for viewing!

Michael Kensinger
 

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Say Michael,

May I recommend the use of two different brushes for your work ? One fine and one bigger, lets say a size two/three and six/seven. If you would use them to fill in the darker parts, as for the darker colours and shadow, you would loosen up your work considerably. You're obviously a good guy for the details now it's time to move on to give your work more life. And with the use of brushes you will do so.
Ink is my medium too. I used to make washed ink drawings for illustrations in a birding magazine. At first I only used pens but quickly learned that washing the ink with water and paint them in with brushes made my drawings so much more vivid. They became more like black and white water colours.
So, try it Michael, you'll be amazed by its effect.
 
Hidde Bruinsma said:
Say Michael,

May I recommend the use of two different brushes for your work ? One fine and one bigger, lets say a size two/three and six/seven. If you would use them to fill in the darker parts, as for the darker colours and shadow, you would loosen up your work considerably. You're obviously a good guy for the details now it's time to move on to give your work more life. And with the use of brushes you will do so.
Ink is my medium too. I used to make washed ink drawings for illustrations in a birding magazine. At first I only used pens but quickly learned that washing the ink with water and paint them in with brushes made my drawings so much more vivid. They became more like black and white water colours.
So, try it Michael, you'll be amazed by its effect.

Thanks Hidde!

Not only will that add life to the artwork, but it saves time. Do you ever use this technique with backgrounds?

One of my biggest issues is creating backgrounds: clouds, etc. In my mind, a wash would be just like using watercolors, and save me a lot of stippling!

Any pointers on that?
 
Absolutely. Using wash with a brush for backgrounds is the best thing to do. But be sure that you use a (far) lighter wash for the backgrounds than anything you use for your main story in the foreground. Otherwise your backdrop is competing for attention and that doesn't work and doesn't look good.
When you use a light wash as background be gentle with the amount of water you use while diluting your ink. You don't want your paper to go floppy. You can avoid this to a certain extent by using a thick but smooth kind of paper. A smooth surface of your paper is important because it gives very little resistance to your pen.
You will see, as you already suggested, that it's a far more easier way of working than stippling. You can start by applying a plain, very light background around your bird etc. in the foreground and fill that in with slightly darker details as foliage, branches, mountains, clouds or whatever you want. When you get the hang of it it's done in a flash.
So, Michael, here's my last suggestion: stop mailing and start working for the doors are wide open !
 
Typically, I use bristol for my ink drawings. It stands up well to airbrush techniques, so I think a light ink wash would be fine.

I've never done an ink wash, do you have any examples, exercises, or techniques that might help me get comfortable with this new direction?

Thanks very much for your input, it's much appriciated.
 
Your paper is of the right kind. I use Bristol as well, Bristol "graphic". That has an extremely smooth surface and is quite sturdy.
As far as technique is concerned I only can say just try it. Nobody has taught me anything. I just started using it and it went great. Within time you dare more and usually things work out just fine.
But I can give you one suggestion perhaps.Today I've heard from a colleague that she uses a kind of wax in her water colours which she applies on the parts that don't have to be washed. Then she can use a rather large brush freely to wash the background without standing the risk of spoiling anything in the foreground. Also in that way you get a very plain background without the tonal differences you may get when you just work around the foreground. After you've washed the background you can easily remove the hardened wax by rubbing it off with your finger. It's a technique I didn't know up to now and, off course, I've never used it. But it seems ideal and I'm certainly going to use it whenever I start working again.
A final suggestion I can give you (but is it really final?) is to look at other peoples work as much as you can and learn from them. I assume you know a bird painter or two who work with pen, brush and ink. See how they solve problems you may encounter in your own work. Don't be afraid that you will copy their style because you will develop your own quite fast. But looking at other peoples stuff will make your work more complete. And that's the way you should be heading for.
 
Hidde Bruinsma said:
Today I've heard from a colleague that she uses a kind of wax in her water colours which she applies on the parts that don't have to be washed. Then she can use a rather large brush freely to wash the background without standing the risk of spoiling anything in the foreground.

I often use liquid frisket for watercolour washes. The stuff dries into a rubbery coating that easily rubs off but repels water very well (although it smells kind of nasty when it's wet). Any good art store will carry it. The only down side is the hard edges it produces in the masked areas -- usually easy enough to fix with a wet brush when using watercolours, but with inks I imagine it would be difficult to get rid of. Unless, of course, that happens to be the effect you're after!
 
Timberdoodler said:
Although I'm a new forum member, I thought I would share some of my artwork, done in my favorite medium: pen and ink.

Very nice work Michael. I wish you all the best and keep us posted.
 
Thanks Jomo for the additional info.
Yes, I wondered about the effect on the edges of the covered areas. Isn't there a way to avoid that ? Perhaps in ink drawings the effect doesn't matter because you already have (at least for many parts) a hard outline. Anyway, I should try it out one day if Michael doesn't beat me to it.
 
I couldn't think of what it was called, but I was going to suggest liquid frisket!

When I think about it, i've used frisket in the past to preserve bold white highlights when doing watercolor washes. I'm not sure how it would be painting in an entire foreground with however. I suppose you wouldn't have to cover it all with frisket...just a good bit of it around the edges of the forground objects.

There is also a sticky paper on the market that allows you to trace the drawing, cut it out with a razor, and apply to the image traced. This also protects the foreground in a wash scenario. I'm not sure of the name though.

Hardened edges aren't so bad considering in most of my work I try to make the animal "stick out" against a blurred, out of focus, or faded background.

I imagine very carefully painting each raised feather or hair with a stroke of frisket would avoid too solid of a line. That way the outline isn't smooth, but jagged and following the feather/hair patterns.

I'm excited! I need to get some more supplies before I can try it out.

Thank you to everyone for the input. I love learning new things.
 
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