As an attempt to improve my inking and move away from just reproducing comic art or doing a pin up, I recently did a study of ‘Wanderer above the Sea of Fog’ by Friedrich.
The original painting had a lot to for me to get to grips with. There’s the wanderer perched on a mountain in the foreground. Then you have mountains in the fog in the mid- and background to contend with.
The painting has more defined mountains in the mid-ground, but I felt that working entirely in ink required a change in my reproduction. Bolder/ better defined mountains in the mid-ground would either pull focus from the wanderer, or worse, have the wanderer disappear into those aforementioned mountains.
So I opted to have all mountains enveloped in the fog and represented in such a way that they are just about visible to the wanderer.
With the exception of the wanderer and the mountain he stands upon, the piece is almost entirely done with ink and brushes.
I’m pretty happy with the result. I don’t think it would have worked as well if I had used pens for any of the mountains in the distance. The wanderer takes the place of prominence in the piece.
I’ve included an image of the original painting below my study so you can compare my finished piece against the painting that I was working from.
