The first two papers I tried for this life-size figure drawing weren’t strong enough and they were torn to shreds relatively early in the process. I finally had success (after almost a month of experimenting) with Arches 300 lb. hot press watercolor paper — it is VERY strong and held up beautifully!
"Sarah" April 5, 2006, 7 x 3.75 feet, pen and ink drawing. Permanent Collection, Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art
detail
Framed drawing in studio (plastic wrapped)
The squiggly lines in my new drawing are concentric tracings of each tone layer — in that drawing there are 22 tones, I believe — I was experimenting (pretty successfully) with creating tone by that weird cross-hatching — each tone layer was treated exactly the same way — by ‘coloring’ them in with little parallel concentric squiggles on about .o8″ centers — quite a programming challenge! First I traced the darkest area, next the two darkest areas as if they were one area (changes the shape of the area so a random sort of ‘cross hatching’ may occur), then traced the three darkest areas as if they were single shapes, etc. etc. until finally I traced the entire non-white area… Worked well! The paper held up and in the darks, there’s a beautiful low-relief ‘combing’ from the repeated passing of the extra-fine point Precise V5 Rolling Writer pen (eight or nine of them, actually — they only hold enough ink for 10 or 12 hours of drawing)… I’m finding it quite difficult to briefly describe my process, but it’s pretty simple, really…
In a way, this drawing took exactly one month to produce, if you include the previous failed efforts and the one-week workshop I taught at Center for Contemporary Printmaking in Norwalk, CT last month. Here’s a short movie from my first attempt (which was torn to shreds by the pen — the paper stretched, wrinkled, then tore under the repeated drawing) — shot March 6, 2006: