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5th May 2023: Expressive Drawing Reed & Inks with Lisa Takahashi
Thanks to Penny Lamb for providing these notes. Lisa Takahashi is a prestigious and engaging Somerset-based artist, who makes linocut prints, oil paintings and watercolours. She is best known for her bold, geometric linocut prints of cyclists. Her figurative paintings are colourful and expressive and have the influence of British Modernism and French Impressionism in equal measure. Her work has been exhibited at the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition, The Royal Watercolour Society Contemporary Watercolour Competition, the New English Art Club, the Royal Society of British Artists and the Royal Society of Painter-Printmakers. What's more, in 2018 she reached the semi-finals of Sky Arts Landscape Artist of the Year, and in 2022 she was chosen as the expert judge for the Devon heats in Channel 5's Watercolour Challenge |
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We all enjoyed Lisa’s relaxed, interpretative style of drawing and her demonstrating of her expressive drawing techniques for us. She used a carved wooden male African head for her model on this occasion, starting with a light pencil drawing on Hahnemuhle Lana paper. Keeping the pencil moving Lisa worked out the proportions of the head before moving onto the features. She advised us to keep observing and not to be too precious about the drawing. |
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After shading in the tonal values she moved onto using a Kuretake pen, (Kuretake is a Japanese brand known for their hugely diverse range of creative pens and markers). Her pen helps her with a Japanese ‘Sumi’ style to get to the essence of the subject. To get more shading, damp kitchen roll was used with Indian ink which was then transferred to a brush for details, but she reminded us not to use too much liquid on the pastel paper. Eco Line pens, which are water soluble, were used for the mid-grey tones, using loose marks. After the monotones you can add some red brown pen accents here and there . A good warming up exercise in this style is to do a quick continuous line drawing of the head in pen , holding the pen on the end. This will produce a free, expressive drawing. |
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