Apparently they are for real! I myself have never used them — I stick to the tried and true walk-into-oncoming-traffic-and-propel-your-arm-into-the-air-with-as-much-emphasis-as-possible approach.

Nonetheless, I loved getting to draw people doing silly things so this was a real treat, hahaha.

Thank you! This is a great question. It’s taken me a while, haha. I’ve been working on my use of sumi ink, pen, and graphite for the better part of the past four years.

I was directionless when it came to medium and craft while I was studying in college. I loved painting with acrylics and oils, but I wasn’t strong with color. I was more interested in playing with values, so I was inclined to work in black and white. Near the end of my degree, I found my “happy place” with drawing mediums — graphite, charcoal, and sumi ink, the latter of which I struggled to fully understand.

The moment I pushed to focus on one or two mediums came at the end of my senior year. I was working on graphite fashion illustrations for my thesis while doing graphite portrait illustrations with the art director at OUT Magazine. Sadly, the portraits were becoming thin and expressionless, and they just weren’t working out. My art director gave me a really great prompt to experiment with different mediums, which proved to be extremely formative. The challenge of sumi ink wash went from being frustrating to exciting, and I ended up trusting that medium.

Honestly though, I’m far from perfecting my understanding of the mediums I love. After graduating, it took another year to really come up with an approach that reproduced well in print and had just the right amount of polish for me. I’m still in flux — the need to shake things up, learn new techniques and seek a deeper understanding of the crafts I already work in is still there.