Thursday, 29 July 2010

Sketchbook Project II

So you've made your spaghetti and ink drawing but you're not impressed... so now what? If, as I have, you have used regular black fountain pen ink (i.e not waterproof) then you can liven things up by taking a wet paintbrush and running it over your drawing.

And you have instant colour. This type of ink bleeds out giving beautiful shades of blue and grey. I've also added a line of yellow ink down one side to suggest shading.

If you actually dip your paintbrush into ink* rather than water to begin with then you can achieve all sorts of interesting coloured effects.

Such as this... which I think takes the fear out of making a coloured drawing. It would be good fun to repeat this exercise using some really whacky colour combinations.

Or of course you could just fill up the page with colour. Whatever you try it doesn't matter. Remember you are not trying to make perfect drawings or beautiful works of art, you are experimenting and you are trying to generate ideas... keep pushing boundaries and see what you come up with. You might surprise yourself.


*I've used Kohinoor ink palettes to add colour to these drawings - available from ArtVanGo

14 comments:

vintagerockchick said...

Very inspirational Gina, if you could do one or two of these every day it will keep us motivated!
And is pink whacky enough?
I just need to find something I want to draw now x

Mavis said...

Just a thimbleful...

Oooh, lovely. I shall try to make a start this afternoon !

Sandra Scott Textile Artist said...

Hi Gina
I will try to follow your lead, drawing is good for your soul.

Locket Pocket said...

That looks brilliant! The children and I bought our ink yesterday and our sketch pads today (we're all joining in) so now we just need to find the spaghetti! Lucy x

Stephanie Pettengell said...

I have heard of the watercolour palettes but never heard of ink palettes ! Love the drawing, nearly got my sketch pad out, keep it up and I may join you yet. X

RHIANNON said...

with this second sketchbook post I'm getting really tempted now, may even get a sketch book at the weekend

Thimbleanna said...

Beautiful Gina. I love that vibrant blue backgroud!

Heather said...

Your poppy seedheads are gorgeous and I love the watery effects. I have tried to do a 5-10min sketch each day using a pen, so will try to keep that up if nothing else.

Dragonfly said...

Lovelier and lovelier!

JP said...

WOW - these are gorgeous

Jenevieve said...

Lovely, you make it look so easy! I bet it's hard to make it look as good as yours though. Also love the bunting the in your last post! :)

Ingrid Mida said...

I used to love doing pen and ink drawings. You are an inspiration to give it a go again! Bravo!!!!

Scented Sweetpeas said...

those are gorgeous but I am sure if I tried it they wouldn't turn out quite as pretty as that :-)

LOVE STITCHING RED said...

Loving your sketchbook work :o)