Experimenting with a new way of drawing animals

A couple of weeks ago, amongst all the travel preparations and house renovation organisation, I took a break and spent almost the entire day trying out drawing with ink and bamboo pens.

The bamboo pens were hand carved by Kate Moby from bamboo grown by herself and came in three different sizes. I first came across her about 4 years ago and fell in love with her owl and her style and have since purchased many other animals to give them a home. Though I never really thought about trying to draw with bamboo pens and ink myself.

After evolving my own style last year, I wanted to try something new to break out of the minimalist shell, so I thought, why not this, with even more colour and unconventional combinations. I didn’t quite know what the effect would be drawing with bamboo pens, instead of let’s say brushes and ink, or how easy/difficult it would be to draw since the pens only hold so much ink at a time. I’d like to think that I got into my own style quite quickly (only took me a load of watermelons and different types of paper) but I’d like to try out different ways of using ink, either less diluted or even more diluted.

I am not quite sure what my fascination with birds is, but for some reason I keep coming back to them. I guess I like how versatile they can be in terms of expressions and characters they can take on in a drawing or photo.
I am chuffed with how the ‘I’iwi (Scarlet Honeycreeper from Hawai’i) turned out.

The camel was a bit more of a challenge. I drew a camel before, but I think it was lacking character. I am happier with these two and also the colour combinations I tried out, though this one is a cheeky, tricky animal that needs a bit more practice capturing.