GAREN EWING
GE
The Rainbow Orchid - behind the scenes 3: workspace and materials
Let's have a little peek at where I draw, and then what I draw with. This was my drawing table set-up when drawing The Rainbow Orchid (c.2010).
- A small mirror, for checking out the occassional facial expression.
- Masking tape, used mostly when I need to attach an extra sheet or two to the main page to find vanishing points that go out of the drawing area, but also to fix a page to lightbox when needed.
- This part of the table is where I place reference, the script, the previous page - any bits of paper I need to hand.
- Portfolio of recent work, various files and a portable drawing slope are kept down here.
- This is where I place the page I'm drawing, it sits on an A3 cutting mat (I now have an A2 one).
- My stool. Behind it, under the table, is an assortment of old art equipment (paints, inks, old pens etc.) that rarely get used.
- On this side of the drawing table I keep a variety of rulers (from 12" plastic to a 24" metal) as well as a ellipse stencil. You can also see a calculator and a pair of dividers.
- My lightbox, which doesn't see a lot of use, but is very useful when it needed.
- A small low table upon which is heaped reference waiting to be used, sketchbooks, notebooks, bits of script, and other things at the bottom which I probably haven't seen for quite a while. A very handy table extension.
- Up here is a jam jar containing my dip pens and brushes, a bottle or two of black ink, a plastic container of water, and a small metal pan in which I keep a shallow well of ink to feed my dip pens when inking (since updated to a nice Victorian porcelain and brass inkwell).
- A lamp - I have two attached to the drawing table.
- A cork board for posting up recent pages for reference and decoration/inspiration. More the latter, to be honest, as the size of the drawing table makes it difficult to get too close.
- A book case (now bigger). The rest of the room is also full of bookcases. There's a fair amount of junk on top here - a wooden artist's mannequin (never really used), a cardboard cut-out of Dorothy from The Wizard of Oz, and spare blu-tak, staples, stickers, paper clips... stuff.
And here's a look at most of the equipment I use. The artwork is drawn on an A3 Bristol Board pad.
- 12" plastic ruler
- Wacom stylus for digital work
- brush for solid blacks
- dip pen with a Hunt 107 nib - my main drawing tool
- Staedtler Mars Professional 0.25 - for fine detail
- Rotring Rapidograph 0.5 - mainly for ruled lines
- clutch pencil
- click eraser pen
- spare Hunt 107 nibs for dip pen
- pencil compass
- ink compass
- dividers
- erasers
- new eraser - waiting for active service
- Winsor & Newton black Indian ink and inkwell
Here is a panoramic of my studio office as it was in Jan 2018. The main change to my work set-up is the addition of a Wacom drawing screen.
