“Nature Girl” Ink Drawings — Incorporating Characters into Landscapes
An experiment comes together from spare hemp paper and a dream!
I’ve always loved drawing landscapes; there’s something therapeutic about observing the organic shapes and moving your pen or brush in a leafy pattern.
And lately, I’ve been enjoying drawing portraits and characters, both cartoons and semi-realistic. There’s a satisfaction in capturing a resemblance and seeing lines come to life as a familiar face.
But the one type of drawing I never thought of doing was combining a character and a landscape. It just never occurred to me, and felt kind of incongruous. I couldn’t get the character and landscape to match in tone, so they’d feel like parts of the same picture.
Challenge accepted
As soon as I noticed that I’d been avoiding this type of art, I couldn’t wait to get better at it! I followed this advice from art YouTuber LavenderTowne: to learn new art skills by framing them in terms of the skill that you are already good at.
In her case, she enjoys and is good at drawing characters, so she imagines their homes as an extension of them. Drawing backgrounds was the hardest part for her until she started seeing them this way. (Overall, her channel is excellent and worth checking out.)
My problem was sort of the reverse, so I decided to try something weird. I would draw a landscape, and basically make the character an outgrowth of natural features. Like she was some kind of nature-spirit.
This experiment led to my series of three ink drawings that I called my Nature Girl Series. I like structuring my work into series because I can create a clear structure and endpoint. It feels like an accomplishment to reach the end, and you can explore a single theme in depth.
I was super-eager to start, so I used the materials I had lying around:
- dip pens,
- ink I was using for my fountain pens,
- hemp (I think?) paper samples I received from a print shop.
Nature girl 1
In the picture above, I sketched in the foliage and rock face and added a rough outline of the girl, all in dotted lines with a pen. Then I inked and hatched most of the background, and hatched some of the shadows on the girl, before finally inking her.
The character blending into her background makes her a bit uncanny. I think I like it.
Later, I also did some digital editing in (iPad) Procreate, including changing the background color (to fit in on my website) and adding lighter highlights.
Nature girl 2
For my second drawing, I did a little more sketching with thin pen lines this time, before doing the thick dip pen inking. Also, I practiced drawing heads from this downward-looking angle in my sketchbook a few times, since I hadn’t tried it before. I took some pictures of my own head and used them for reference.
After my first attempt at the drawing, I put it aside, but something about the head position seemed off. So I took a picture and figured out the anatomy digitally, using red lines:
Luckily, I was able to fix the issues in the ink drawing, before going back to digital to change the background color and add highlights. That way, the original looks right too.
Part of the challenge comes from sketching with a pen without using a pencil first. Going ink-first is a habit I have from my sketchbook. Maybe I’ll try it the sensible way next time. But not before…
Nature girl 3
I did even more preparation for this one than the last — working out the perspective on the tree, since we’re looking at it from high up, and trying out a couple of different compositions in thumbnail form.
I like the end result, even though I can see its flaws, like the where’s-Waldo aspect of my character — she’s hard to spot. Or is that a sign of success? I integrated her into the landscape a bit too well.
Takeaways
I enjoyed making this series! I’ve been doing a lot of digital art recently, and it was fun working analog, getting ink all over my hands, and practicing new art skills.
Is there a particular skill that you’ve always found difficult? How could you focus on it primarily, and leverage the skills you’re already good at?
Do you like organizing your projects into series or challenges? I’d recommend trying it if you haven’t!