Tangling with Brush Pens Part 1

Last Friday Art Clubbers and I had the first part of the series Tangling with Brush Pens. It was an incredible experience, emotional and beautiful. I'm celebrating this year 10 years of cancer diagnosis, and that's a big deal.

I started showing Clubbers a few examples of what I had done recently with a fude nib fountain pen and brush pens.

Then we started our project. The goal was to focus on accepting the brush pen as painterly medium, not as an equivalent to the precise Micron inking pen. As such, it will behave in unpredictable and uncontrollable ways, much like the brush that it is.

We started with Ravel, Quabog and Fescu tangles, all roughly added using the brush pens. To add more injury to the piece, we added water, which made the ink bleed all over the place.

Next came acceptance that this more like a painting, not a drawing. Using familiar tools such as colored pencils and gel pen, we continue to add more painterly effects.

Here's the final picture. The effect is like a painting, not a drawing.

It was so cool to see how no two of these are the same. Here are another two that I created before class.

Feel free to share or pin these pictures.