INK AND COMMITMENT


Sophie Herbert

You should turn to ink only when you are no longer afraid of commitment.

If you're looking for a more casual relationship, choose a pencil because I guarantee you, ink will still be there in the morning when you wake up, and she ain't leaving after breakfast.

Newer art tools, from the etch-a-sketch to its successor, the WACOM tablet, sometimes give us the impression we can make all our mistakes disappear. 


The Etchasketchist

Photoshop enables us to retrace our steps and magically wipe our fingerprints off a murder weapon or retrieve the phone number we imprudently handed out in that bar last night. But the benefits of this freedom come with a cost.

Ink is the medium for artists who are prepared to stand by their actions. Ink reserves her special favors-- as well as her frustrations-- for those artists who understand the significance of commitment.

Ink is applied wet but leaves a fossil record of every decision or mistake the artist made. That record can be difficult to live with, but its finality transforms the psychology of the experience; artists who enjoy playing with the wetness of ink recognize they can't escape the consequences of their actions when that ink dries.


Saul Steinberg had just one chance to get this bold flourish right. This Hineni moment was important to the character of the art.


Andre Francois

Ink can be experienced by means of a rigid pen or a yielding brush (offering the artist yin or yang alternatives). Some people prefer the metal backbone and sharp point of a pen nib because it offers precision and control. For this I cannot blame them. But personally, I find the nonvertebrate brush provides the strength to make the more powerful statement. The point on a brush bends to the resistance of the paper but the more it bends, the stronger and bolder its mark becomes.


Note the virilty of that lapel stroke by the great Leonard Starr

Which leads me to the point of this post: When Francis Bacon laid out the scientific method for understanding the physical universe, his great insight was that the only way to master nature is to obey her. Only by observing nature's properties and following her laws can you then command her to do your bidding. On the strength of this perception, humans launched the scientific revolution, patiently collecting the information to harness the physical world.

This rule applies equally to the hydrology of ink. Once you have learned to understand and respect her properties, ink can perform magnificent feats for you.


She is likely to serve you better through the fluid freedom of the brush than through the pen which constrains her nature. (This law also applies to other physical sciences, such as love.)

Some fools believe they can have it both ways, getting the benefits of the medium without having to deal with all of her messy capriciousness, simply by caging her in a rapidograph and regulating her through a 000 nib. But this is not mastering ink. Such people are emotional misers. They don't understand ink, and never will.

Popular posts from this blog

THE SKETCHBOOKS OF ALBERT DORNE

Image
Albert Dorne was one of the most remarkable characters in the history of illustration.  The upcoming book,   Albert Dorne, Master Illustrator  (out in November from the fine folks at Auad Publishing) describes how Dorne used his drawing ability to climb from the depths of poverty and illness to international renown as an artist, business leader, educator and philanthropist. Detail   From the introduction to the new book:      Starting with nothing but a talent for drawing, Dorne became (in the words of advertising titan Fairfax Cone) “the highest paid, most successful commercial artist of his time.”   From that position,   he used his drawing skills as a platform for building a multinational corporation that trained tens of thousands of students around the world in the creative fields of art, writing and photography.   Now a wealthy man, he went on to use drawing to help the disabled, became nationally respected for his charitable work and was appointed by the President of the United S
Read more

GEORGE BRIDGMAN'S ART CLASS

Image
These are original student drawings from the 1911 class of the famous art teacher, George Bridgman. Bridgman, constantly inebriated and chewing on a large black cigar, would rail at his students about the importance of mastering anatomy: "Don't think color's going to do you any good. Or lovely compositions. You can't paint a house until it's built." His students adored him and vied for his approval. Some of the students in this class would grow up to be stars, such as Norman Rockwell , Mclelland Barclay or E.F. Ward . But in 1911 they were still ambitious teenagers dreaming of the future and striving to develop the kind of academic drawing skill that many illustrators today consider irrelevant. The crowded classroom was warmed by the stench of tobacco, charcoal, perspiration and turpentine. Many of the models were girls who had come to the city to work in department stores during a peak holiday season and were laid off after the holidays.  Desperate for money
Read more

FIRST CONTACT

Image
. Every once in a while we do a post on science fiction stories here. For me the genre is just endlessly interesting thanks to remarkable storytellers who break new ground with each advancement in technology, biology, evolutionary psychology, etc. If you add into the mix recent discoveries of planets potentially capable of harboring life in other solar systems, suddenly novels of "first contact" have intriguing new playgrounds. A recent novel I haven't been able to stop thinking about is Blindsight by Peter Watts . It in part explores the questions: If an extrasolar intelligence arrived, would it even be possible for us to parse a completely alien psychology? And how would we react if it seemed to refuse contact or took no notice of our attempts to do so? We have a poor track record in dealing with things we don't understand and that frighten us, and Blindsight is a frightening novel. It has a kind of Richard Dawkins fueled bleakness that makes the story compelli
Read more