Accept every offer. In the world of inkprov, my partner is water. I make random squiggles of water on blank paper. Then I add ink. It’s only when I add ink that the lines and shapes offer themselves. I have to accept whatever they are and draw from them, into them, and with them. My eye-mind chases shapes while my hand moves, and I think, that looks like an tree. Then I draw a tree trunk. Then the pen hits a patch of water and the tree becomes a lake. I could blot the excess water dry and force it to become a line again, but I don’t. My hand makes something else of it.
Not every line has to be perfect. I flip the pen to make a wide line and the ink stutters. It doesn’t matter. On to the next.
Do it now, not later. You can tell time from a line. The start of the stroke is darker, the end fades into water. Where the pen stops and lifts, a boundary forms. Dry ink doesn’t move, so I don’t wait.
Be specific, provide the details. A few details here and there, when the ink is almost dry, locks the image into place. Yes, those are hands, aren’t they? And that curve, that’s definitely a bottom that wants to sit down. The place where the dark ink has settled could be the shadow between breasts, and with a few more lines, it is.
Tell a story. I am not sure if others can see it in the finished piece, but during its making, I have the threads of a story in my head, that reveal themselves just as drops of ink spread to reveal the shape of water. The story begins with line and space and color, and develops into themes: a woman who waits so long she sprouts wings, the enemy inside ionized and released in a burst of plasma.
These inkprov pieces are on blank Muji paper.
Plasma:
Punk Popsicle Girl:
Wings:
