Learning to Ink, Part I

On my list of goals to accomplish for 2009 is "Learn how to ink with a brush". Well, really, it's just to start toying around with a brush and learning how I draw with one. I'm really timid about the whole thing (which is partly why it's one of my goals), but I finally started spending some time making careful lines with my brush, and falling in love with the wet depths of black ink. 

These photos show a few pages in my sketchbook. I've been focusing on eyes, which is kind of strange, now that I think of it. I've been making well thought-out dots for eyes at best in my other drawings, but using a brush pulls out a different focus for me---allows me to see things differently, and see different things differently. 

I like drawing eyes, because of how recognizable they are---if I mess up drawing an eye, everybody knows it. The delicate lashes and masses of eyebrow hairs are a lot of fun to draw, and I'm figuring out new ways to portray the effects of light and shadow. Leaving breaks in dark areas for light to peek in, and noodling with narrow creases around the eye and lids are so much fun to draw. Now I'm scared about drawing full faces and figures, but its the next step.

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Did I mention you can buy some of my paper cut-outs here?

Figgers

I'm working on all sorts of primitive imagery and these are some figures from the "project". Some are drawn with my left hand, some are drawn holding the marker with my fist instead of fingers, some were drawn upside-down.
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I remember, as a kid, there was something deep down inside the drawing that I was attached to. Something that was found in the colours and lines and textures, but also something else---outside of those things. I think part of it was the newness of the whole thing. Testing a pencil on paper and seeing what happened. Its easier now to make calculated lines, but maybe they aren't as packed with life as when lines were new.
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These drawings are some tokens of me approaching drawing as something new.