I’m trying to get as much work done as possible so that I can completely fill the walls of my studio with these large scale figure drawings for open studios, which is coming up on Nov. 2 & 3. In terms of wall space, I can only have 7 drawings in progress at a time. I’m trying to achieve a balance so that I always have something to work on while I’m waiting for the etching ink to dry on the other drawings. Since each drawing has multiple layers (sometimes up to 4 layers) of etching ink, and the etching ink can take up to 2 weeks to dry, this is going to get complicated.
(above) a digital sketch done from a vine charcoal sketch.
I feel like I’ve finally figured out a concrete strategy for my thumbnail sketching process. I like doing digital sketches from the vine charcoal sketch. Doing the digital sketches from the etching ink drawing made the thumbnails look “too good”, and I felt like I was trying to accurately copy the thumbnail sketch rather than using it as reference. With the etching ink thumbnail sketches, there is also definitely the potential for the thumbnail sketch to look better than the final drawing itself, and I don’t want to set myself up for that kind of comparison.
(below) a digital sketch done from an etching ink drawing.
Clara Lieu 