Long time readers of Lines and Colors will know that I have a particular fondness for pen and ink drawing; a medium with a long history and many great practitioners but one that is assigned little glamour in this day of inexpensive color reproduction and computer imagery.
Melissa B. Tubbs is an Alabama based artist who takes inspiration in the woodcuts of Albrecht Durer and the traditions of past pen and ink artists, an finds particular delight in the patterns of light and shadow created by sunlight cascading against the details of architectural forms.
Her pen and ink drawings are rendered in textures and tones created in finely detailed crosshatching, used in places almost like washes. She utilizes them to give her architectural elements visceral textures of stone, brick, wood siding and other building materials. She also has a nice feeling for the textures of bark and leaves, flags and drapery and cloth awnings.
As you browse back through her blog posts, be sure to click on the images for the larger versions. Some of the older posts, in particular, feature linked images that are large enough to get a feeling for her hatching technique (image above, with detail below: Hunt Memorial, NYC).
Tubbs is represented by the Stonehenge Gallery in Montgomery, Alabama; and her drawing of Carnegie Hall in NYC will be featured in the drawing collection Strokes of Genius 2: Light and Shadow, by Rachael Rubin Wolf, to be published in October.
[Via EmptyEasel]
Wonderful technique. Very precise and elaborated.
holy moly she’s good!
Thank you for introducing her, Charley. It’s always fun to see well made ink drawings.
Melissa’ work is so incredible to look at. Her pen and ink drawings capture so much detail it is hard to take it all in. She has true artistic talent that comes across in an amazing way. I just love everything she does!
Simply amazing! Where do you find these artists?
I love her work. Wonder how long does she work on each image…
Drool, if only my own work was this good.
Oh sure… It’s easy when you’ve sold your soul to the devil! Just kidding. This work is amazing…
It’s Alabama that does that to people. Very nice, thanks for posting her work.
Great work. And the size is….?
best regards from Portugal
I don’t know. You’ll have to contact the artist through her web site.