Luss Scotland ink landscape drawings

Pier at Luss, Scotland 

in 'Kentucky Bluegrass' ink with a little bit of brown

Ink series of the village of Luss, Scotland

finished some with colored pencil

all 5x7 images

 

reason for doing this series : I saw the village featured in a Facebook post, especially the pier, which is above.  It mentioned the little ice cream shop and the wonderful long paths that go along the shore all the way to the 1,500 year old church.  It is also listed as the Loch Lomond Faerie Trail for walking.  I wandered Google Street view and captured a few images I thought would be interesting to repeat the motif in a couple of drawings and see how, even with different inks and treatments, they might fall together as a series based on their shared subject. 

(I have more images saved, will add to this post as I decide to attempt them)

  

Pier Street at Luss, Scotland

in 'goldfish' ink with colored pencil (and a perspective alteration 'to fit')

School Road at Luss, Scotland

in indigo ink, with a bit of changeup because the big bush was in the middle of the scene and obscured too much, so I moved it.

 

 The Parish Church at Luss, Scotland

in indigo ink with added carnation pink - which wasn't doing it.. so I added one drop of red beyond that and achieved the color I was thinking of

 

Loch Lomond Arms hotel, Luss, Scotland

goldfish ink with a touch of brown

colored pencil because the trees did not stand out like I wished them to

 

Other Notes: All of these were completely left hand drawn.  It has been a few months since I decided I should embrace being mostly left handed, even though I learned to do everything including drawing and writing with my right.
 

Postal Route drawings

 I've done a few drawings of my postal route - this is the one I did today - 'Near Watkins Lane', colored pencil and inks

the thing about the postal route images are they are a 'smash together' of things I see around that place, not an actual representation foot by foot of what you would see there.  For example - the tree at the end of Watkins Lane, and beyond it you see the lake one way and t he tall straight bare trees on the OTHER side... and the cows live across the highway, not down the lane, but they are pretty and I wanted to put them in there somewhere.... if you knew the area, you would recognize that the 'parts are there', but all jumbled up.

and at the end of laying out the above drawing in blue, my pen snapped and popped - which made me wonder if I needed to throw it out and use the other one I have instead.  But no, I took the rest of the paper and wrote this out and drew this tree - and there is no reason whatsoever to throw the pen out.. 

It's been a hard week on the postal route.  It's been cold - my truck has been broken in a minor but annoying way (door handle) so I've had to improvise.  I'm very glad I'm as stretchy as I am at my age - but it's been annoying and my left arm is in that 'what did you do to me' stage that doesn't even really hurt anymore until the middle of the night and then I wake up and everything clicks and cracks and eventually I forget about it like a bad tooth until I try to do something 'different' with it like carry laundry or hold something up.. and then it goes wonky again.  hypermobility is not as fun as it looks, but it could be worse... maybe I can get some more sleep now, as I don't have postal route (that I know of) for another week or more now

cold stress

"HWY 105" postal route drawing

This one was done a few months ago, and oddly enough, it is the very next section to what I just did now.. sort of like working backwards without even trying to

So now I'm thinking about working 'forwards' on the next chunk from the horse onwards...

 

 

completed it what will I call this one?  "HWY 105 - CONTINUED" ?

The horse in it is the same horse as the above one, just around the corner to the mailbox that is broken and most of the time in a mud puddle

 

" Railroad streets West and East"

I did this in black and white but haven't went further with this one - it is still in town and was done while waiting for them to bring the mail one morning then forgotten at the post office for weeks.. it's home with me but I still haven't moved too much forward on it.  It is also 'compressed' and represents a section of postal route that is actually more like a mile in length but would be recognizable from the elements

'Old Trezevant Road' 5x7 inch

This approximate area is where one day there was a huge white cow walking down the middle of the highway.  I slowed way down, not wanting to hit it - and it put it's whole head in the left-hand side of my postal truck.  It then proceeded to lick the dashboard a bit - and then decided to 'move on'.  I really hoped no one would hit it.  I didn't want to come back to 'smeared cow' all over the road since I go down that road and come back.  But, by the time I returned, it was nowhere to be seen outside the fence... and there were so many inside the fence well, I couldn't tell which one it was.  *ha*

Pastel over Ink : What I Saw in the Moonlight landscape drawing

 

first time playing with pastel in a good long time, used this paper, Canson Dry Mixed Media Sand Grain natural sand colored paper.   I was trying to catch an effect I saw in the moonlight last night with the shadows of the trees that I couldn't 'see' in plain ink or colored pencil.. it felt 'smudgy'.. which to me meant pastel.

I started out with a bluish-green ink brush to get started washing in shadows - then went over with pastel

 

This is what I wish it had stayed looking like, but the pastel fixative darkens the colors and mattes out the blacks... so I went back with a little bit of brush technical pen ink and darkened back up the blacks

 

finished:

'What I Saw in the Moonlight' - Marie Lamb - November 19, 2021

ink drawings

 Ink, as in dip nib pen ink, is one of my oldest hobbies that I have begun to get back into.  What now, twenty years ago? The year 2000, so yes... I did this almost every day as part of my drawing training at NDSU - I would do large 18x24 sheet papers of ink in many colors.  It took lots and lots of patience and close vision - which I had back then, and time, which I also had in abundance even though I was going to school and working at the Michael's store. (I also did not sleep much then, either *ha*)

I tried a little bit when Esme was small, but didn't stick with it.  Some of my inks have deteriorated over that time and I had to replace them - the brown turned to a purple, the yellow to a brown, and the red mostly just clotted up and is unusable.  So, I ordered some replacements and they came in the mail last weekend.

   

Kentucky BlueGrass ink from the Birmingham Pen Company

and Higgins yellow drawing ink (new stock)

 

Paper study between Master's Touch Mixed Media, Grumbacher Mixed Media, Stonehenge drawing paper and a regular Master's Touch drawing paper.  The results?  Both of the mixed medias (which I have because they are diff. sizes and I was at diff. places when I bought them) have their own unique qualities that could be used to get an effect with the ink.   

 

The Grumbacher is smoother, but can pool and make dark spots with the ink and those spots can easily tear or 'rough' and look bad in the finished drawing.  But it is a brighter white and takes the ink more smoothly across it's surface.  The MT has a rough tooth, is sort of ivory colored, but also leaves 'high points', white spots where there wasn't enough ink to fill in the tooth and the top of the surface.  Each has give and take.  I have yet to make a tear or rough pool point in the MT.

A small porcelain tea bowl I purchased at a specialty tea shop with my husband many many years ago - and finally found again this year through a comedy of errors in my cleanup of the studio after my eye surgery.  It is now in my ink kit where it belongs.  The pen on the left is a regular pen with a regular nib.  The crow quill pen is in the middle and I don't like it (but I gave it another try).  The brush is a small camelhair brush and I do use it a lot.  The pen comes with various other nibs meant for calligraphy, but I tend to use the one with the sharpest fine point.  Some nibs like the ones by the bowl have reservoirs, that hold more ink in them.  The one that is on the pen in the picture does not have a reservoir.

 

 

I've recently been embracing the probable fact that I was supposed to be left hand dominant, but was trained with my right.  I made a post earlier this month about that revelation while trying to draw portraits again.  All of the drawings to follow were drawn with the left hand only.

 

Manx Kittens Lyffan and Loki

in a mixed ink of 10 year+ brown and new red

which turned out sort of ruby or cranberry colored

 

Wood Thrush 

drawn the day the new brown ink came, with a nib that does not retain and needed to be dipped every third stroke or so - I then changed it out to one that had a small reservoir, and have been using that one since.  Although, it must be taken care at the end of writing or drawing to either 'draw it dry' or stroke on a piece of cork or ragged paper until all the ink is drawn out and it is as clean as it can be.  I used to have pen cleaner - but I never used it, and it went dry before I opened it.  I find 'drawing it dry' useful and leads to some interesting things, little sketches or lines of poetry sometimes.

 Hazelnut / Filbert tree

only one color of ink here - the new brown, but the 'fresh' ink in the pen is super dark, and as it lessens it becomes more of a 'tea' than a full ink of the pigment and gets lighter and lighter until the pen is dry and must be re-dipped.  This is something that can be used to advantage in drawing, but it will take practice.

Ink drawing Tiger Bird Girl

Tiger Bird Girl or woman.  This is Ingrid, from my book, that I'm still trying to make a good cover art for.  Thus, this drawing.  It fits in an 8.5 by 11 inch frame.  It is definitely her - but still a bit too large and too detailed to shrink down to a five by 7 book cover.  She has stripes, and claws, and feathers.. she is a tiger with her claws 'the wrong way in' and a bird that flies to the other side of the stars.

It is for sale in my Etsy shop : Etsy shop MarieMeyer.etsy.com

2002 drawings Regeneration and Medicine

I dug into some old artwork of mine today, as I wanted to make a small print version of the first one here.  Took some pictures before I put them away again.  This was from my linguistic surrealism / expressionism drawing phase that I graduated through college at NDSU (North Dakota State University) with.  Lots of ancient art inspiration and looking at picture languages of the SouthWest, Middle and South Americas.  There is also a bit of Picasso that shows up.. but that is likely because he was inspired by the same things, as well.

'Regeneration', 2002, inks 

18x24"

 'Medicine' 2002, watercolor and ink

16x22"

'Medicine' screenprint on cotton paper, 2003

three color process

about 8x8"

 

2002 Marie Winger (now Lamb)

A medieval penguin .. this looked very similar to costumes of the Black Plague Priests after I looked up people in bird masks.  However, I have no idea where the original imagery idea came from.

 

The Evolution of Cosmic Bear 2002

this tells a story about how Cosmic Bear went to the underworld and came back with his weapons.

It was a made-up mythology story for some of my drawings in my class.  There was a whole mythology of Cosmic Bear being abandoned in the Silver Forest, adopted by Fox (Cosmic Fox), and taught all the things about the Universe, interacting with humans and other Animals in the Forest and becoming a force for Good.

Our family zoo portrait

From left (clockwise) Minion, Freckles, Minerva, Lucy, Nova, Sweetie, Spud, Kitty (the goat), Dox, Daphne, Pumpkin, Callie.

Mark says my style isn't cubist, it's trapezoidal.  Ha.  I wasn't sure I was going to get everyone in there- started with the dogs and Esme said I had to add the goat, and then I had to find places to put the cats.

Drawing the way I see

This was a page out of a magazine, but it is 'altered' in that my perspective - the way I see - is quite like this.  I wasn't that impressed when I saw Van Gogh's Yellow Bedroom... or many of Picasso's works, because my eyes work that way anyway... I really thought I was being realistic until Mark looked over my shoulder and said 'It looks like a fisheye lens...'

Old sketchbook things

I've been going through some of my old sketchbooks and portfolios and picked out a few things I liked.

double exposure photograph from my portfolio of me entering the front entry of a house I lived in Fargo and one of the campus buildings at the North  Dakota State University.

 a self-portrait drawn in 2004 at age 25

'Shoot the moon' sketch from automatic drawing in pen and ink

'I am June'  (poem by Marie Lamb)
this was a bit of poetry in one of my sketchbooks

And what is your name?  The bird asked the deer.
"I am June", the creature responded.
And where are you from?
"The Land of Spring Rain and Summer Sky."

There was a time when I was young --
A time I remember but it was long ago.
I cannot describe what it was like --
Except my mind, my body, my soul were all growing at once.

I'm not sure how much of me grows now, or when.
But the young green leaves that I had been now taste summer rain.

I wait for the flowers -- to tell me how far I've come in all this time.

Brown these leaves have not yet seen nor the cold of autumn night.

But here in June, we remember early April, the melting of the snow that kept back the sun -
We remember growing - all at once - and watch the skies clad in their Summer blue.

Drawing

Working a bit more on the little playful landscapes in my sketchbook.  The one on the right is about half-colored in now.. update a bit more when they are further along.  The locations are bits and pieces of mental pictures I have from driving back and forth to work.  There are several farms that have silos like this on the way to Paris, TN.  Mark and I had talked about the possibility of a calendar to be made from a set of these...

My Micron pens arrived in the mail yesterday, and I am looking forward to playing with them in this fashion, as well.  

Irises

Another little ink and watercolor for a friend

It's nice to dip my hand back into this... been off drawing for a while.  Still knitting on the brown wool scarf, and the orange striped blanket... couple of other irons in the fire to think about.  Finished the book, and onto the next.

November Slumber

It is the last day of November.


This drawing was made today, and is called 'November Slumber'
(6 by 7 inches original ink)

It is reminiscientof my drawing 'July Dream' from several years ago. It will be available in the original art shop.

I made it into an Etsy Treasury!

I was included in an Etsy Treasury by Scollardgreens today :) Thank you! This is the drawing that was included and it is available at my PenStrokes shop.

Rabbits Climb to the Moon original ink drawing

'Fantasy Woods' Rabbits climb to the Moon

This drawing should fit within an 8 x 10 mat opening. It is an original handmade drawing on sketch paper, not a print. This drawing was SOLD at the PenStrokes shop.


Rabbitsmoon detail 1

Rabbitsmoon detail 2

I spent a few hours last night with my gel and Micron pens. I drew 12 blocks for a quilted project and then started out on this drawing. It shows little rabbits climbing up the tree to sit in the moon. There is also a deer, owl, bird and dragon monster in the drawing. I call this place the 'Golden Woods' where my little mythological creatures play, and it shows up often. This drawing also has lots of the 'nonsense' gears and attachments that often appear in my drawings. I love getting back into making the textures like the ones under the deer's feet and up the tree.

Books: I'm reading 'Blindness' by Jose Saramago. It is very different than most of the things I have read. The author uses generic descriptions for all the people like 'doctors wife' and 'taxi driver.' There is a large lack of visual descriptions because everyeone is supposed to be blind, except the doctor's wife. The things she is described as seeing have more impact because she is the only one seeing them - especially the descriptions of the thief's gangrenous wound etc... There is also a dream-like feel to the book and the author's has a formal British accent which adds (for me) to the feeling I am truly looking into another world.

Original Ink Drawings

I got a new set of Micron pens a few weeks ago and just really put them to the test last night with a few ink drawings. Here is what I came up with, some like my old style, some like my current style and one that looks like Picasso came and tried to ghostwrite Guernica through me ;) heh

Once again, all of these drawings are created by scribbling a few random marks on the paper and trying to figure out what I see by connecting the lines. They are all listed at Pen Strokes.


I call this style a new Art Nouveau
It looks somewhat like my old style



Picasso-like.


close-up - 5 colors of ink and lots of sketchy stuff
I called this one 'I Fell in Love with a Birdman' - even though it doesn't really say much about me and Mark in particular or that he is actually a Birdman... although he does have a sharp profile *grin*... Sometimes though the name just hits you out of the blue even when it doesn't make perfect sense.


Blue Rabbit, Brown Bird
This woman is singing about all the creatures and they are singing with her

As you can see with all three of these I draw women in bird masks a lot - maybe you could call the bird AND the rabbit avatars of a sort... they show different sides of my personality and I use them in the pictures to try to tell a story about where I am going and what I am doing.

Drawings: Big Catch

--more here--

Drawings: Cat Tower

--more here--

Drawings: Knighty Night

--more here--

Artwork: Automatic drawings

Phoenix

These drawings start with a few ink dashes put down on paper to the rhythym of a song. Then I slowly fill in the areas that look like something to me, until there is a full image and no dashes left over (hopefully). This is a style I have been working on for well over ten years. Usually animals, people and plants show up, but also some symbols that have come to have meaning for me.

We are currently gathering and posting these drawings at Pen Strokes etsy shop.


Rabbit Dancer Woman