TENNIS BALL WITH INK

After framing 9 paintings today, I finally took a break and did a fast painting. I used Lana watercolor paper. First I sprayed it with water to dampen the surface then I dipped a new tennis ball into a dish with India ink and swiped it across the top of the paper, sprayed some more and worked the ink into the paper, let it run and generally toned the paper. Then I dipped the ball into more ink and started to draw. What Fun!! After things had dried somewhat I dipped a large bamboo pen into the ink and drew some details. Went back with the ball and added some more full strength ink in places for more contrast. Any ideas for more tennis ball experiments? Leave your ideas in the comment section. I am thinking liquid water color next! Click on the image to see it in greater detail.
Tomorrow I hang my 10 paintings (out of 20) of Nick with Guitar in the Gallery Concord. This is the first time I get to see them all hanging together. You can view the entire series on my website: www.myrnawacknov.com under the series section.

TENNIS BALL, ERASER WITH CHARCOAL

Since yesterday was a religious holy day, I took the day off from any work. Today I decided to do two pieces to catch up. Working on pastel paper, I used the tennis ball and powdered charcoal. Wow, is that messy!! I decided to work upright rather than flat to avoid a distortion in the image. Today I used a photo taken in Bordeaux of a street musician with wonderful hair and a beautiful face. After working back and forth with the tennis ball and the kneeded eraser, I became impatient with getting more precision so I started using my finger to apply the charcoal and then a paper stump for finer detail. The charcoal is much more maleable than the graphite powder and lifts much easier also. Nicer paper doesn't hurt either! I am much more satisfied with the image than working from my imagination.
The second drawing, I toned the paper all over with the charcoal using the tennis ball, then started lifting out with the eraser. A little back and forth with charcoal, then eraser. No fingers and no stump this time.
The last image is using one of my favorite drawing tools, a Japanese brush pen on top of the last drawing. Tomorrow, tennis ball with ink and paint!

TENNIS BALL & ERASER DRAWING

I was up early this morning, so, before water aerobics class, I decided to get to work and created this drawing using powdered graphite on a large sheet of newsprint. I was excited to see what kind of marks the ball would create. Had to use a new tennis ball - we used to have millions of used ones floating around but never when you need them! It is a messy process, so I think I will mark this ball graphite and the next one I will use charcoal and then I want to try ink and paint and see what happens. Then comes combining mixed media. One can always put acrylic spray over the image to fix it and then work any material on top. This image was from my head as I didn't take the time to find a picture to work from. I was just making marks and lifting with a white eraser and a kneeded eraser to see how it would work. The ball fit nicely into the top of the graphite powder jar so that made things easier. A shake or two and the ball was "loaded". This was great excercise as the whole arm and body become engaged drawing this size. It will be interesting to try smaller images for less detail. Also I will be trying different surfaces. Lots of exploring with just one new "tool". I finally downloaded my images from our trip to Israel. There are some very interesting faces to work with. So many images, so little time!