Ink Drawings! Wow!

Y'all, I discovered something about myself this year.

I really, really like inking.

I've gone through a lot of phases with linework in my digital art, but overall I've generally always been a fan. Smooth lines are satisfying. Thinking about line weight is fun. Even when I'm trying to just splash something onto the page I tend towards messy darks and have to clean them up later. None of this has ever translated to traditional drawing though--I've never felt like I knew what to do with an ink pen. There have been a few times where I would try one out and then give up on it immediately.

Well, I took a flower drawing class at the community college this fall, and that's really helped me to bridge the gap. Flowers are all form, lots of flowing lines, lots of pockets of shadow and tendrils of detail. I get flowers. This class wasn't necessarily the most fun I've ever had (why did we have to draw so many fir trees??), but it let me get comfortable with a pencil in hand again. And then, after a few weeks, I picked up the pen.

I'm not going to say I've figured it all out, but I was really impressed with my progress over the course of the semester. The dahlia and sunflower were earlier sketches, and the artchoke one of the later. I still see things I might do differently next time, but it's pretty clear that my confidence grew with each drawing. I'm so happy with the folds on those artichoke leaves!