pen-and-ink – Victoria Clare's Art

Hounds and Dragons: pencil, ink & metallic pencil

Above, a selection of my own hounds through the years, plus Tolkien’s Huan.

A wingless Dragon – a bit pretty to be Glaurung?

Story Illustrations in acrylic and ink

Maglor from the Silmarillion meets Ilbereth, Father Christmas’s secretary from Tolkien’s Father Christmas Letters. Created for the Tolkien Reverse Summer Bang 2019 event, this work inspired this fabulous story by Narya-flame. This one is acrylic

And here’s a second illustration of Maglor on Magdalen Bridge – this time in ink with inktense pencil colour.

I made a brief video of the last painting by photographing it as I went along!

Inktober! A drawing in ink every day.

Since I’ve been doing some ink-painting and drawings in ink recently, I decided to attempt the Inktober challenge, and do a drawing a day. Because of the need to make something very fast, some of these have been slightly tweaked in software once photographed.

Here’s the official prompt list!

Day 1: a slight cheat, since I made this earlier. The prompt was ‘Poisonous’.

Ungoliant poisons Laurelin : ink painting

Day 2: Tranquil.

Day 3: Roasted

Three Trolls eating MuttonDay 4: Spell

Day 5: Chicken

And in that very moment, away behind in some courtyard of the City, a cock crowed. Shrill and clear he crowed, recking nothing of wizardry or war, welcoming only the morning that in the sky far above the shadows of death was coming with the dawn. And as if in answer there came from far away another note. Horns, horns, horns. In dark Mindolluin’s sides they dimly echoed. Great horns of the North wildly blowing. Rohan had come at last.

Day 6 : Drooling

Day 7 : Exhausted

Maglor Son of Feanor has fallen asleep still wearing his armour, one hand on his hearpe.

Day 8: Star

And when this new star was seen at evening, Maedhros spoke to Maglor his brother, and he said: ‘Surely that is a Silmaril that shines now in the West?’
And Maglor answered: ‘If it be truly the Silmaril which we saw cast into the sea that rises again by the power of the Valar, then let us be glad; for its glory is seen now by many, and is yet secure from all evil.’ Then the Elves looked up, and despaired no longer; but Morgoth was filled with doubt.

Ink sketches : Tolkien movies (more or less)

I have to admit I’m not the greatest fan of the way Elrond was characterised in the Lord of the Rings movies. Poor Elrond ‘kind as summer’ who welcomes everyone to Rivendell and never once gets angry in the books, should not be so grumpy!

But I was inspired to try drawing Grumpy Movie Elrond by a conversation on Tumblr, and here are two takes on him: one as an indignant child;

And then another more like his grumpy movie self:

A little while ago, I also drew Thorin Oakenshield from the Hobbit movies: they have their flaws, but there’s no question they gave us a rather magnificent and kingly Thorin!

Three ink-paintings

I went to a demonstration of Chinese ink-painting by Kaili Fu this week, and came back keen to try some of the ideas and techniques. I didn’t have any rice-paper, or the proper ink or brushes, so I had to make do with indian ink, a book of hand-made paper that I happened to have had lurking about the place for ages, and a little acrylic paint.

This was the image I liked best, the third that I made. The bottom photo shows it from the side, to show a little how the gold acrylic shines, and the top photo shows it top-down. All the other colour is ink. The influence of Kaili’s ink-painting here is probably just to embrace the fact that the paper absorbs and the ink mixes, rather than trying to fight it! I only used blue, yellow and black ink, and a little water. (you can also see the difference that lighting makes to photographing these!)

This next one was entirely created in inks, and again, trying to embrace the fact that the ink spreads, particularly if mixed with water and applied from a wet brush. (warning, there’s a spider!) This one is a painting of another story from Tolkien :

Finally, this was the first I created, and probably closest to the demonstration. It’s a rowan tree. I think I could have applied the red ink with a dryer brush, so I got a more ‘berried’ texture, but I do like the purple swirly hills and the sharp, dry-brushed rocks.