Fred's heads: Naknek artist's unusual ink

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Posted: November 9, 2009 - 3:34 pm

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By MIKE DUNHAM
Fred Anderson: Self portrait in 2004.
A blue ink drawing by Fred Anderson Sr. at the recent "Virtual Subsistence" group art show sent us to the archive where we discovered he's won previous statewide exhibitions twice with self portraits. And the berry-picking bug in the "Virtual Subsistence" show kinda reminds me of him, too.
Fred Anderson: Self portrait in 2006.
From his home in Naknek, the artist said he got interested in the difficult blue Japanese ink while trying to teach himself how to draw some years ago. Living in Naknek, that's how you do it, the nearest art academy being some hundreds or thousands of miles away.

"I decided to draw every day for five years," he said. But as he quickly mastered regular pen-and-ink, he switched to blue after a while.
Fred Anderson: Japanese ink drawing in "Virtual Subsistence," 2009.
"It was very frustrating," he said. "Tricky to do. But eventually I got the hang of it."

One of the qualities of the ink is that it dries rapidly. Anderson said he sometimes smears the ink while it's still wet to create a shadow effect.