Been fiddling around recently with some new Art effects – what I call “Ink pen and wash” and am quite pleased with the results. I had produced an earlier one of a temple in Cambodia, but now trying it out on lots of different subjects.
But first – the portrait. This is the artist’s portrait produced from a photograph taken late 2007.
Portrait of an Artist
This was an oil impression style and involved a number of different processes to manage the final look. Used quite a few layers here and various filters both to achieve the background and the surface textures. I then added a standard portrait type frame in a complimentary color just to round it off. This of course is in a classical oil painting style and quite unlike the “new Art” of the title – the first of which is below -
Charles Bridge - Prague Pen & Wash
The first one features Charles Bridge in Prague and taken as the sun started to go down, hence the rather vivid coloration, though highlighted in this particular illustration. Sketched with brush and black paint plus different color washes gives a quite pleasing effect.
Detail is quite scarce here though it’s easy for the viewer to automatically “fill in” the spaces as it were. I like this new style as it is both simple yet comprehensive in some way – it is NOT just a sketch but more than that and the fact that the drawn lines are very free and fluid helps this view enormously.
The picture is also very “clean” which is assisted by the fact that here definite bold strokes are used as opposed to the rather vague sketchy pencil style that I would use say for a draft or a painting for example – rather like the old “pen & ink” I used to do years ago.
Boatman - graphic
The final one for this post is a picture of a boatman (Vietnamese) or more accurately a boat-woman as she makes her way along the Mekong River, her small boat filled with her belongings and shopping.
Did this in a sort of graphic style more than a paint style, with minimal color used and what with dark blue, black and white and with a muddy background color may seem odd . The background of course is representative of the river and journey, the boat itself was a blue but against the background I preferred it darker and so added a little violet as a complimentary tone. The white flashes reflects the white traditional “coolie” hat she wore and I framed it within the river just for my own amusement.
Overall the image is a sort of pastiche – a quick sketch with Chinese brush or a quick pen and wash technique and maybe not meant at this time as a “finished” work, but rather as an “in progress” – an experiment in texture, form and color.
I’m sort of finding my way with this idea and who knows where it will lead. That’s the fascination of “new Art”….
True, Its a great effect.