Shark Tango

A study of two sharks using pen and ink using the stippling technique, this drawing demonstrates the tonal range you can achieve just using black dots on white paper. The sharks could be underwater or floating in space - your choice! I really enjoyed picking out the tiny details, despite the time consuming technique that allows no erasing mistakes.

The piece is drawn on bright white paper and is 42cm x 59cm with very little bleed edge. It is signed and dated 2002 on the front.

Follow

Hi there, I’m Kate. Thanks for looking at my art!

I am a largely self taught hobby artist, working mainly in watercolour, pen and ink and graphite. I don’t have any formal fine art training, but brief study of interior and industrial design grounded me in the fundamentals of highly detailed representational work. Despite my love of the finer details I am trying to find a looser, more emotive style, veering toward semi-abstract.

I enjoy learning the properties and limits of an often unpredictable medium like watercolour, because it’s equally frustrating and satisfying. Sometimes when you think watercolour has gone very badly wrong it turns out so right! This is why you’ll find chaotic experimentation and controlled detail contrasted in my work.

I don’t have a particular narrative I’m trying to deliver: I’m a dilettante mainly driven by the aesthetic, especially that of the natural world. I find inspiration in random places, from magazines to photography, to hikes in the bush and doing my own never-ending gardening, to graphic design. I work from my own reference photographs and stock photography.