Quillin’ it up, biznatches

(Nov 14, 2009)

The other day at worked, I helped a very lovely woman who was looking to get into ink drawing. We ended up talking shop for a really long time, and I recommended to her that she give drawing with quill nib a try because she was looking for something more organic than a pen, but not as bold as a brush.

It got me to remembering that for the longest time I used to draw almost exclusively with a quill. It wasn’t until towards the end of college that I started playing with using a brush. Now I can’t see myself using anything but the brush [besides some microns for fine detail here and there]. It was interesting to be thinking about my progression as an artist in terms of the tools that I use, and how that to a big extent also reflects me as a person.

Anyhow, I decided to dust off the old supplies and doodle a bit. The only one worth sharing is the image above, which was drawn from a picture in a book on Japanese cinema. It was a lot of fun and I would definitely like to dedicate the time to drawing with some old supplies that I don’t use much anymore in the future…

And for old time’s sake here’s some older works brought to you by the quill -

And to get an idea of how different my style became after starting to use a brush, here’s another Candy & Veronica comic strip i did for the District, SCAD’s newspaper.

[Ha! One more note: Notice that most of these images are of my old girlfriend and her best friend, who I absolutely adored at the time. It's also interesting [and slightly embarassing] how your body of work as an artist can reveal a lot about you as well.]