Juliet Schreckinger is a Long Island, NY based artist inspired by the ocean and nature at large. Her love of black and white photography, and film noir movies has informed Schreckinger’s signature monochromatic pallet.
Since I was 14, I knew I wanted to use ink as my primary medium. I wanted to be an artist from the time I could hold a pencil, and as a child I experimented with paint, clay, colored pencils, really anything I could get my hands on. Once I started using ink to create detailed drawings in my teenage years, that was all I wanted to do. It was like I had found my perfect language to speak in, something I could use to translate my feelings onto the paper. I experimented with many different ink pens, but once I used a Sakura Micron pen, I never wanted to use anything else. I started with the 005 nib, which I thought was the smallest, but the company sent me a 003 to test out and I fell even deeper in love. I have created all of my gallery works for the past five years with the 003 and 005 Micron pens, and I use them exclusively for a few main reasons.
The first reason is the nib size. I love how fine of a dot I can get with the 003, I have not found any other pen that can make a dot that small. Secondly, I love that the ink is archival. This is so important as an artist who sells their original pieces through a gallery, as my gallerist can guarantee to my collectors that my work is made using entirely archival materials, which is a huge selling point when considering taking home a piece of artwork. Another reason I love these pens so much is because they last a very long time. The nib stays strong even though I am essentially stabbing it against my paper a million times per drawing, which is pretty remarkable. In stippling, the shape of the mark that the pen makes is essential; if the dot is not almost perfect every time and the marks become elongated or misshapen, it can really affect the overall look of the piece. I never want any area of the piece to draw attention to itself unintentionally, and misshapen marks can do just that. The ink lasts a very long time too, and people are always surprised that one single Micron can last me through multiple large pieces.
To anyone who wants to use ink as their primary medium, or even better – if you want to be a stipple artist like I am, I can tell you that I have tried many different pens and nothing works as well as the classic 003 Micron.
– Juliet Schreckinger
Juliet’s most recent solo exhibition Explorations of the Evergreen State at Gallery Ergo in Seattle can be viewed at the link here!