146 Rediscovering black and white

I've been working on illustrations for a book entitled The Philosophy of Thick Paint. It's a collection of essays I gleaned from my upcoming book The Secrets of Thick Paint. I decided to keep all of the philosophical and introspective writings in one volume illustrated with black-and-white pen drawings of my life as an artist. It will be a book for artists to enjoy on rainy days when they can't get out painting or need some encouragement. Conversely The Secrets of Thick Paint will be illustrated in full-color as a how-to book delving deeply into the technical aspects of painting with thick paint.

What follows is a video I made as I sketched with the Pentel Pocket Brush Pen. Which if you haven't tried, it's awesome! I highly recommend it. Below are some links where you can buy this Pen for a cheap price. I actually paid double at a local store but it was still worth it! Let me know what you think.

I use the Tombow pen for my thumbnail sketch because it has a thicker brush. The blunt tip makes it harder to get an extremely thin line which is perfect for the preliminary sketch where I don't want to get bogged down in detail. And since it's not waterproof I can't go back and fiddle with white paint to make changes, all of which helps to focus on basic shapes of white, gray, and black.

Working in black and white is a great way to learn to deal with values and has direct application to color work.

Brad Teare 2013