Cheers,
I've just made a brave step forward, well actually a couple of drunken steps forward after several pints of strong french lager!
Frustrated by my crap illustrations in recent bird reports (my drawings rather than the printing) I've tried using different strengths of watered down indian ink. This is the first time I've seriously tried to get my feet wet, so I'm fairly pleased with the results, considering I don't really know what I'm doing.
Very little idea about composition etc so I've gone with my instincts.
I've used watercolour paper here rather than stretched cartridge paper, so I don't know if Ive made life easier or harder. I found it rather tedious, and by no means fun. A couple of really 'titanic depth' basics here: is it possible to attain smooth washes with ink? will masking fluid work with ink (I'll find this out soon as getting clean edges seems very difficult), and how do I get a nice gradation of tone without it looking awful and blotchy? Impossible questions, eh!
All traced from field sketches and the habitat stylised a bit. Avocet is my best effort. Not sure if the the egret needs a very dark tone to the water in front of the log to bring it forward or back (?) I almost lost the will to live trying to create a nice even wash for the gull - so just left it like it is. Waxwing needs a bit of 3d, smew's ok.
Any feedback on using ink would be most appreciated. I might be best trying payne's grey instead. Sorry, but I'm fascinated with monochrome, and thought it might be a good place to start with using something other than a pencil.
Great White Egret, Avocet, Smew, ring-billed gull and waxwing, hopefully appearing in the 2010 local bird report.
Cheers