Shapes of Things 2

This is another experiment, using just watercolor pencils, some washes, and regular graphite on light sketching paper. My technique was to create lines and a composition, along with some colors that I would bring out in more vibrant fashion in post-processing using Lightroom and a bit of Photoshop. Here is the original drawing, which doesn’t look like much. Very low contrast and not much color. Overall very flat.

shapes-things2-original

In Lightroom, I added a bit more exposure, then cranked up the clarity and vibrance along with saturation (a bit). In doing, that the yellow color in the paper became much stronger.  I also adjusted the whites and blacks to give it a bit more contrast. From there,  I went into the color adjustments to modify the hue,  luminance, and saturation. Finally, I tried a few sharpness and noise settings. I was not worried too much about the extensive noise, because I thought it lent some interesting texture to the image, which of course had been there from the beginning.  Here is the final result.

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Vibe 3

This is a third piece I’ve put up where I simply applied ink with a ruling pen. The idea of these is to create an interesting image, using very simple ink strokes. If there is balance and good spacing, there can be a pleasing result. Having spent some time experimenting with these, I think there is a principle at work similar to that in Japanese shodo (calligraphy), even though there is minimal resemblance between this and shodo. The principle, I think, is balance and harmony without symmetry or alignment. The ink spots/spray were created by digging into the paper with the pen so that the vibration caused the ink to spray.

vibe3

Vibe 2

This is a trial using an instrument I made out of tin called a “folded ruling pen.” I have a real one on back order, but these tools apparently are somewhat rare; hence an attempt to make my own (following instructions on Youtube). The behavior was not quite what I wanted, but some of the effects were nice. So, I will continue to experiment with this one and make some more.

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