Sketchbooks IV: Sticks

Recently at Art Club with The Good Ship Illustration we were drawing with sticks dipped in ink, and I found that I loved it! It creates a very spiky line, but it was quite liberating to embrace that line …

The drawings were still timed, but stopping to dip the sticks meant that I couldn’t work quite as quickly as usual, and it was good slow down.

I found that if a stick is quite blunt and slightly splintery at the end, it can give a lovely ‘dry brush’ effect.
I wanted to remember which sticks made the best marks, so I named them (after ’80s pop stars).