Painting with ink

I've never been fond of drawing. I know that sounds like a strange thing for an artist to say, but to me drawing has always been a means to an end, which is to create either a blueprint or a package for painting, depending on whether I'm painting over the lines or defining the subject with them. For me, it's always about the color. For that reason, I have never really excelled at drawing: I can do a great contour line, but when it comes to shading or cross-hatching or any of the other means of filling in the shadows and solids in a drawing, I am woefully amateur.

For that reason, I have never enjoyed (or participated beyond a few days in) the Inktober challenge, because it's all about the drawing, and the people who excel at that produce such amazing works of art with nothing but a pen that it stymies the rest of us who haven't developed that skill.

But...I recently learned this technique of delineating with a pen and then using a wet paintbrush to paint with the ink I just laid down, and both the challenge of it and the finished look appeal to the painter in me while allowing me to work a little more on my drawing skills. So when Olga Furman decided to do an Inktober for portraitists, I decided I could participate if I could use the ink in my own way.

The first black-and-white reference photo she supplied was that of Sinéad O'Connor, the Irish musician, and you could scarcely find someone with cleaner lines, especially with the minimalist heart-shaped hairline of her shaved head. This is a mature Sinéad, with some gray coming in at the sides and slightly fuller cheeks than in her youth, but still with an amazingly spare jawline and few to no lines in her face. Previously, the faces on which I have used this technique have been older, with scores and wrinkles and blemishes of various kinds that can be highlighted to advantage, so painting this clean example required a certain delicacy, sometimes using only the ink on the brush to draw, rather than putting in lines that don't actually exist. But I think I captured her likeness. I couldn't resist adding a little color, particularly because although her eyes look so dark in the photo, they are in life a clear deep blue that picks up nicely with the aid of a blue jacket.

"Sinéad"—Uniball pen and water in Bee Mixed Media sketchbook, 9x9 inches, with cobalt and ultramarine spot watercolor.

#OlgaInktober2021