I recently received a new publication from Walter Foster publications. Pen&Ink is the first in a planned Artistry series which will focus on various fine art mediums. The name Walter Foster is very familiar to me as I still have my very first art book on how to draw children top, above. A friend of the family gave this to me when I was also a child in order to help my drawing of people. It is well-worn and certainly helped back then. Now Walter Foster Publications is producing a new series of books that should be of great help to artists. This first book focuses on pen and ink and, after a basic introduction to tools, materials and techniques features four different artists with different techniques and styles. Desarae Lee also uses water colour washes and collage material. M.Ramos is a Brazilian artist who uses stippling (along with a magnifying glass!) to create detail such as cats' fur and the smoke and steam of a locomotive. Loui Jover is from Australia and works in mixed media. He uses vintage book pages as his drawing surface and creates very interesting effects. I especially liked his city scene as the book pages added another dimension to the work. I was amazed by the work of Samuel Silva who is now based in London and works in ballpoint pens. Yes, ordinary ball-point pens to produce startlingly realistic work such as the bird shown above! Needless to say, this is very time-consuming but the book does show it all in detail. Illustrations are excellent and inspiring. It seems like Walter Foster -or his descendants - is carrying on as an aid to artists.
