Diluted acrylic ink on heavy paper.

This piece is simple, but there were several distinct steps behind its creation. First I created the line with ink and a folded ruling pen, much like several other pieces. I have been reasonably happy with this process, but the lines themselves have been a bit grungy, in part because of the texture in the paper I have been using. This is a neat effect, but I also think it takes away from the smooth curves of the line. For this one, I tried something else. After drawing the line and taking a photo of it, I then used Shape, which is an Adobe application for the iPhone (free). Shape basically takes lines, simplifies them and creates vector shapes. So it smoothed out the lines considerably. To get it into my phone, I just took a photo of my monitor. Then I emailed it to myself (as a jpeg) and opened it in Photoshop. From that point, it was easy to select the line, fill it with black, and then put in a gradient background. Here’s the final result.

I started this piece by laying down some watercolor washes. Then after the paper was fully dry, I created the black lines using a folded ruling pen to apply ink. The ruling pen is still a new tool for me, but I love the straight lines, angles, and other effects that it makes possible. I should also say that while this may look like an Asia language to some, it is not. Inspired by calligraphic writing I’ve seen someplace? Quite likely, but there’s not a direct connection to anything as far as I can tell. These pieces sometimes “create themselves” and so any deeper background influences are hard to discern.