Pen and ink stylised rook drawing for greetings card Digitally coloured bird sketch Digitally coloured pen and ink sketches The lovely etchings of Japanese artist Keiko Minami. (Click to enlarge them) I did intend writing this blog last night but my favourite Criminal Minds was on and I couldn't possibly miss that, could I? I should have done it after it finished but then there was another CM repeat on and I couldn't miss that either. By the time I got to bed it was gone 1pm and my head was full of all sorts of goriness...LOL I thought I would show a few etchings of my favouritist favourite illustrator Keiko Minami. She was a Japanese artist/printmaker who died in 2004 in her 90's. Her book of etchings is shown on the right hand side of my blog and is well worth buying in my opinion. I think her work is so delicate, fairy like and delicious. She was very restrained in using colour but even her uncoloured work is beautiful because of the lovely delicate lines and cross-hatching. Her work is very stylised and usually involves two sweet little sisters who spend time with animals, trees and lovely buildings. Talking of her trees: they are very stylised and the book features over 36 trees and every one is different. I cannot pick up this book without wanting to draw and although my old rapidograph is a poor relation of her wonderful etchings, I can get a very similar effect with cross-hatching and dotting. I have gained oodles of inspiration from this book and as you can see....I LOVE IT! I hope you enjoy her etchings anyway. I enjoyed colouring my pen and ink sketches in digitally so much that I did some more over the week. A bird features (doesn't it always...LOL) and a couple of my pen and ink ladies with trees in the background. Like KM I love stylising trees. I am interested in getting a slightly acrylic, weathered effect on the backgrounds of my pictures at the moment and although these sketches are very roughly coloured, I like them. I do have acrylic paints but haven't broken into them yet. I don't know what I am saving them for though. One of these days....
