Where does the time go?

I can't really believe that I have not posted anything all winter. Part of the problem has been getting drawings duplicated. I've been thinking about getting an A3 scanner for ages, since my drawings are all that size at the moment and I get intensely irritated when I try to do little drawings or doodles. I have half a dozen folders full of A4 ink art and a small photo album displaying 100 zentangle-sized drawings, after which I switched permanently to bigger ones and now look yearningly at old A2 sheets of paper and would use them if I could make enough space to put them on.

I used to have a drawing board you could tip to flat. That was mainly to do large watercolours, but it was not very stable and eventually I consigned it to my loggia. I am thinking about setting it up again when the weather gets better!

So all the drawings that follow are the first merged on my new A4 scanner - it takes 4 scans to get a decent result, but my intention to buy an A3 scanner was thwarted by there being none on sale where I went to buy one. It was an omen. I bought an A4 scanner instead and it does the job  better than the old (broken-down)one. 

These drawings were done recently. I hope you like them. I feel that some are in need of a bit more attention. I added to one and am posting the before and after images to demonstrate my good intentions. I'm always a bit nervous about shading because these are line drawings and carry their own shading in a modest way and have not been done with shading in mind. The same goes for colouring. I get quite annoyed with myself if I decide to colour everything, so usually just add a few highlights in one colour or go for monochrome blank-white. The drawing paper I use does not like wet paint and even attempts with Tombow brushes are not very good, as you can see from the uneven blue on the first of this set of drawings.

Blue loops -Feb2018
(unhappy brush pen)

The new gold gel pen - Feb2018
(dried up half way through!)

Stripes - Feb2018
(pattern practice with a vengeance)

Page spread - Feb2018
(drawn to the edges)

S - Mar2018
(needs colour and more drawing!)

BEFORE::::::::::::::::::::::::::::AFTER
Mar2018
(I improved the balance and resisted the temptation to add red)

Frogspawn - Mar2018
(I had fished around for new patterns)

One of the problems of doing ink art with multiple patterns is that there are so many to choose from that the mind is cluttered - well mine is - and sometimes I can't think of a single pattern to fit in a particular space. I usually start with a blind string or one element (e.g. treble clef, letter), but let the drawing take me wherever it wants to go. On the whole, I enjoy improvisation most, but sometimes get to the point where I know a drawing is not finished, but can't decide what to do next. 'Torpedo' (below) is a good example of this, but it's hard to add to ornamental edges like the one on the left in this one. On the other hand ..I've just had an idea ...

Torpedo - Feb2018