Playing with sticks

Yesterday a group of us were drawing and painting with a model. I had decided to just play. Adrienne Moore has done some terrific work using sticks dipped in ink. I tried it once and thought it seemed like fun because you just don't have quite the same control.  The sticks are pieces of dowelling that you break -preferably with holding your hands not too close together so you get a more jagged break. I also took some pieces of dried daylily stems to try as well. I wanted to work with sticks again- not to copy Adrienne, but to use the tools in my own way. I planned to use diluted ink with a Chinese brush as well.  I played around on some cheap paper - even for the one-minute quick poses. I did one on brown wrapping-type paper and put some white gouache on it as well- a bit different.   Then I  decided to try the back of a "failed" watercolour. What a difference good paper makes! On the cheap paper, the lines pretty well stayed put, but on the watercolour paper, coming back in with diluted ink on a Chinese brush, made the lines bleed in an interesting way. I like the bleeding lines in the hair and the drapery at the lower right, especially. I like the face although it is not a good portrait since the tools don't give enough control for real precision.  - but I felt that it was a successful experiment and made for an interesting morning.