Philippe Tortosa expresses by drawing with a metal pen and India ink which is the most often used material  for this particular art. It is a very covering ink, indelible and especially intense. By juxtaposition and more or less thin intersection of lines... etc, the design takes shape and shade to get an image taking relief and depth through a large number of values, from the softest to the  hardest ones.

Other instruments are sometimes used to draw with India ink : reeds, goose feathers, black felt pens, ballpoint pens or tubular tipped pens, but it  is impossible to use them to get variations of line thickness, these tools cannot obey hand pressure. The author of the drawings shown on this site uses two or three kinds of feathers with half-tint highlights made with a brush or personal techniques producing greys with different shades and intensities.

Drawing with a feather is an old technique.  It is less and less used : because it demands a great deal of control and a lot of patience, owing to the nature of this form of art which requires long painstaking efforts.

The material most often used for this form of artistic expression is the thin cardboard or Bristol board. The type of paper used by the artist depends on the rendering and the effect he wants to get.

In any case, he must take a very high quality paper  : so, the ink does not spread and the pen and the brush can be used at the same time.

He can also use another material : the scratch card coated all over with India ink, and the drawing is done by scratching with feathers called "Vaccinostyle" usually used in medicine for some vaccinations but taken for this particular artwork.

India ink is most often used for illustration and generally on small formats because of the long time it takes to achieve. But the artist Philippe Tortosa has a particular way of working on big formats and increases the difficulty and time spent on his creations. Few artists today use this art, but Philippe Tortosa wishes to go on this technique to keep a bridge between past, present and future.