Chaser

5" x 7" on illustration board.

Hawk quill pen with Dr. Ph. Martin's Black Star India ink.

This is a bit of an experiment in using hard lines to create soft edges and distinct values.

For this one, I drew over a pencil sketch with a marker on tracing paper, then traced over *that* on the opposite side with a 2B pencil, and then transferred it to a mixed media board for inking - which turned out to be less work than my usual method of covering the entire back of the sketch with 6B graphite, and not nearly as messy.

As for the image itself, there's not much of a story behind it. There are hawks visible outside my window during the day that chase each other in elaborate swoops and dives. The original sketch had two planes side-by-side, but while I was transferring the sketch, I changed it to a single plane with a hawk added to the lower right to balance out the corners - so the overall composition was a bit improvised, but that makes it fun. You never quite know how a simple idea can evolve when you pursue it to the end.