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gPen, Ink, and Watercolor Wash Sketching

A Guide to Pen, Ink, and Watercolor Wash Sketching

Pat Van Kirk Wilson www.PenInkWatercolorSketching.com

© Copyright 2008, www.PenInkWatercolorSketching.com

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gPen, Ink, and Watercolor Wash Sketching

A Guide to Pen, Ink, and Watercolor Wash Sketching

© Copyright 2008, Pat Van Kirk Wilson. All rights reserved. Published in USA by www.PenInkWatercolorSketching.com an associate of FunLessonPlans.com LLC, Wilson Publishing

www.PenInkWatercolorSketching.com © Copyright 2008, www.PenInkWatercolorSketching.com

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gPen, Ink, and Watercolor Wash Sketching

Introduction Everyone can sketch. Give a small child some colored markers, a brush with water, and a piece of paper, and you’ll soon see an interesting line drawing with a watercolor wash. Webster’s definition of a sketch as “a rough drawing representing the chief features of an object...or scene” suggests why sketching is an instrument for simplification, for expressing the essence of something rather than its complex and photographic detail. And because a sketch need accomplish no more than to give pleasure to the artist, it’s obvious why so many thousands of people regularly paticipate in a day of sketching sponsored by www.SketchCrawl.com, and why a search of “pen and ink sketching” on Google produces well over a million hits.

I’ve been sketching all my life. It led me to a degree in Fine Arts from Ohio State University, a first job learning to prepare artwork for printing at the University of Illinois Press, and additional study at what is now St. Martin’s College of Art and Design in London. Later I did graphic design for magazines and journals, authored and illustrated a syndicated newspaper fashion column, and drew dozens of weekly illustrations for Chicago-area ad agencies, where production had to be fast and efficient— like sketch art. From all this, I came to appreciate that my first images, however quickly drawn, were often better than those I worked over and refined. Now retired, I still sketch almost every day for the sheer pleasure of putting pen and brush to paper. I constantly find new methods, new materials, new ideas I want to try. And as I sketch I make notes, which are the basis for this book. I hope you find some of my experiences useful in your own efforts to record the essential beauty of the wonderful world around us. Best wishes,

© Copyright 2008, www.PenInkWatercolorSketching.com, Pat Van Kirk Wilson

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gPen, Ink, and Watercolor Wash Sketching

Contents

Page Cover ...................................................................................................................... 1 Title Page ................................................................................................................ 2 Introduction ............................................................................................................ 3 Contents .................................................................................................................. 4 Find the Right Pen .................................................................................................. 6 Dip Pen Nibs in Holders Technical Pens with Refillable Ink Reservoirs Disposable Pens Modern Fountain Pens Vintage Fountain Pens Choose the Right Inks ........................................................................................... 10 Know the Difference Between Waterproof and Permanent Test the Waterproof Ink in Disposable Pens Waterproof Ink for Technical Pens Waterproof Fountain Pen Inks are Pigmented or Dye-based Two Pigmented Fountain Pen Inks are Waterproof One Dye-based Fountain Pen Ink is Waterproof Non-Waterproof Pigmented Black India Inks Three India Inks for Fountain Pens Samples of Waterproof Inks and Water-soluble India Inks Match Paper to Ink and Wash ............................................................................... 16 The Two Qualities that Papers Must Have Types of Papers Suitable for Ink Lines and Light Washes Hot Press Watercolor Paper Drawing Papers in Sketchbooks Bristol Board in Pads You May Prefer Journals or Multipurpose Paper Choose Sketchbooks or Single Sheets Backing Boards for Sheets of Paper Let’s Go Sketching ............................................................................................... 22 The First Mark on the White Paper Tips for Pen and Ink Lines Use Hatches for Tones .......................................................................................... 24 Brushes and New Water Brushes .......................................................................... 26 Flats, Pointed Rounds, and Hake Brushes Dental Care Brushes to Correct Mistakes Brush Care and Transport New Water Brushes

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gPen, Ink, and Watercolor Wash Sketching

Contents Watercolor Paints .................................................................................................. 28 Color Terminology My Palette and the Color Circle My Mini Pillbox Palette Arrangement of Complementary Colors on My Palette Three Primary, Three Secondary, and Six Tertiary Colors A Fun Exercise to Find Complementary Colors Tips for Working with Colors Let’s Paint the Wash .............................................................................................. 33 Begin with the Lines, the Wash, or Both Together? Some Painting Tips Water or Wet Paint Always Flows into a Less Wet Area Try Colored Ink Washes........................................................................................ 38 Mix Water-Resistant or Waterproof Black Ink with Water-Soluble Colored Inks Use Water-Soluble Fountain Pen Inks Alone Choosing a Subject to Sketch ............................................................................... 42 Sketching Outdoors .............................................................................................. 44 Basic Sketching Materials Packing List for Three Portable Painting Kits Hints and Special Requirements for Outdoor Painting Make Your Own Palettes for Small Sketch Kits Carrying Bag or Case Working in the Studio ........................................................................................... 48 Using Images for Reference How to Work from a Reference Photo Tips for Studio Materials Ways to Improve Your Drawing Skills .................................................................. 52 Tools to Help You Draw Learn the Basics of Perspective Learn the Proportions of the Human Body When to Sketch Join a Sketching Group or Class ........................................................................... 54 Flash Lab 101 with Music, My First Drawing Class Sketching with Others Let’s Evaluate Your Sketch ................................................................................... 57 Criteria for Evaluation Develop Your Own Style What to Do with Your Sketch Why Do it? History of Sketching ............................................................................................. 59 Classic Drawings Gallery and Timeline Pen and Ink Drawings More About Vintage Pens ..................................................................................... 60 Links to the Net .................................................................................................... 62 © Copyright 2008, www.PenInkWatercolorSketching.com

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gPen, Ink, and Watercolor Wash Sketching

Find the Right Pen The earliest pens were probably cut from sticks or twigs. Hand carved bamboo reed pens can still be purchased and used with Sumi ink. Quill pens were cut from feathers, and various styles of metal dip pen nibs are still available for penholders. Many kinds of pens can be used for sketching, but most sketchers use one of the five kinds reviewed below: dip pens, pre-filled disposable pens, refillable technical pens, modern fountain pens, or vintage fountain pens.

Dip Pen Nibs in Holders Metal nibs and penholders come in a variety of shapes and sizes. Some of the metal nibs are very flexible and will draw cursive lines that vary from thin to thick. The Speedball sketching set shown is one of several good choices available in art stores. These nibs can be dipped into bottles of waterproof ink. Dip pen nibs are easy to wash clean after each use and are perfect for use with the many beautiful acrylic inks or India inks containing shellac. But these India inks are no longer water-soluble after they dry and can easily clog pens that use an internal ink supply channel which is much more difficult to clean. Also, while dipping a pen into a bottle of ink can be okay for indoor sketching, carrying a bottle of ink around can be messy. So for outdoor sketching we need to look at pens with their own ink supply.

Technical Pens with Refillable Ink Reservoirs Koh-I-Noor Rapidograph sets are among the most widely available technical pens. Each nib has a fixed line width in 12 point sizes from 0.13mm to 1.40mm. They have a refillable ink reservoir to be filled with a black waterproof ink that is formulated specifically for these pens. The ink reservoir can be removed and the nibs can be cleaned to prevent clogging. The pens are sold both in sets of multiple sizes as shown here or as a RapidoSketch Set that includes one pen with your choice of a 0.25mm, 0.35mm, or 0.50mm nib and a bottle of UltraDraw waterproof ink shown on page 10.

Rapido-Eze Pen Cleaner from Koh-I-Noor is well regarded as an effective cleaner in which pen parts can be soaked to remove dried ink.

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gPen, Ink, and Watercolor Wash Sketching

Find the Right Pen

Disposable Pens Disposable pens are a great choice for beginners and remain the preferred pen for many accomplished sketchers. They are modestly priced and come in a large variety of point sizes and colors. The writing tip is usually a tubular, straight, stick-like point that is centered in the barrel and draws a fixed width of line. There are felt markers, gel pens, ball points, fiber-tipped drawing pens, metal tip technical pens, and rollerball nibs. Some pens make fine lines, some make broad lines, and some are packaged in sets with a variety of widths that make lines from fine to broad. There are also pre-filled nylon brush tip pens that can produce a variable line from thin to thick. Your preference will depend on your drawing style, and because you will replace these pens as they run out of ink, you will have opportunities to try various types and manufacturers until you find one you really like, one that fits your hand and style of drawing. Newly designed pens are becoming available all the time, so you should check at your favorite art store to see the latest in both markers and pens. Some typical models of disposable pens that I have enjoyed using are shown below.

Faber-Castell Pitt artist pens Wallet sets of these popular pens are among my favorites in this disposable category. They are filled with waterproof pigmented India ink in four nib sizes and 24 colors. The black, dark sepia, and deep reddish sanguine colors are excellent to use with watercolor wash. They come in Superfine, Fine, Medium, and a Brush tip that can draw a flexible line. A new Pitt® Manga Set is available in a range of grays.

Koh-I-Noor Nexus art pens These smooth rollerball metal tipped fine-line art pens are skip-proof and ideal for sketching or drawing precise lines. They come pre-filled with rich pigmented ink that is archival, lightfast, and waterproof. A special cap keeps the nib from drying out. The Studio Set includes ebony black, burnt sienna, Payne’s gray, red ochre, graphite, true sepia, and light sepia inks, all of which work well with watercolor washes. They also come in a Bright Set and a Wild Set of colors

Sakura’s Pigma Micron pens Available in six fine-point sizes from 0.2mm to 0.5mm, these fine-line pens have strong nylon points in steel support shafts, come in brown, red, blue, purple, green, and black, and work especially well for drawings that will receive watercolor washes. A brush tip pen can draw fine to thick lines. All pens are pre-filled with permanent, archival, quick-drying waterproof, pigmented Pigma ink that will not bleed through thin paper and is smear proof when dried. © Copyright 2008, www.PenInkWatercolorSketching.com

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gPen, Ink, and Watercolor Wash Sketching

Find the Right Pen

Modern Fountain Pens Modern fountain pens are beautifully made and widely available in office supply and stationery stores. Intended for writing, most use ink cartridges available in a variety of water-soluble colors. But these modern pens can also be used for sketching, and many come with converters that can be filled with inks from bottles. No modern pen has a nib as flexible as those in vintage and dip pens, but some have a little flex. The Lamy Safari pen is used by some sketch artists. I have not tried this pen; I can only comment that some who use it for sketching say it has some flex while others say it is just “springy.” To produce line variation, I have used a modern pen for regular strokes and turned the pen and nib over so the top of the nib could be used for finer strokes. The two modern fountain pens that are sold in art stores for use in sketching are shown below.

The Rotring Art Pen This pen is a unique design with both classic and updated features. It can be fitted with calligraphy nibs that can create fine to bold lines, but these lines are for writing and are not appropriate for sketching. The classic pen has two nib sizes for drawing that are fine (F) and extra fine (EF) and are not flexible. They are quite firm and rigid, but very smooth and satisfactory to use for drawing or writing. The extended handle is pointed like a brush handle and provides a nice balance in your hand. The cartridges sold for the pen are not waterproof or lightfast, so if you plan to use it for sketching, it should be purchased with the Art Pen Converter, a permanent piston-fill reservoir which replaces the cartridge inside the pen, allowing you to fill it with your choice of bottled ink. The cap on the pen fits very snugly so that the ink inside does not dry out easily. Mine has been filled with a highly pigmented ink for over a year and it has shown no sign of drying out. Others have had similar experience with the pen and have found it very easy to clean by filling the reservoir of the Art Pen Converter with water and using it as a syringe to flush out the ink channel, nib, and feed. Since the pen is modestly priced, you can feel comfortable experimenting a bit with the kinds of inks that can be used in it. I might fill it temporarily with a new mix of inks that I am testing, but would not use India ink or any ink containing shellac or metal particles. The Rotring company says that only their non-waterproof ink should be used, so you experiment at your own risk. It just proves that we have a very exciting, unpredictable hobby.

The Pen & Ink Sketch Pen This pen is part of a new sketching set that includes inks and sketching journals. The Pen & Ink Sketch Pen comes with one nib in your choice of extra fine (EF), fine (F) or broad (B). Other sizes of interchangeable nibs can then be purchased separately. The pens have a firm point, write smoothly, and include both a cartridge of water-soluble ink and a converter for the waterproof, bottled “Pen & Ink NoShellac India Ink”. The ink is reviewed with our waterproof inks on page 11. I found all of these items in my local art store, and they can also be purchased online. See page 62 for product availability. I am pleased to find a new, inexpensive sketch pen on the market, but had some trouble with a faulty nib assembly. My local art store exchanged it and we are hoping that the problem will be corrected in future versions.

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gPen, Ink, and Watercolor Wash Sketching

Find the Right Pen

Vintage Fountain Pens Traditional, or vintage, fountain pens have a pointed metal nib with a slit that begins at the breather hole and continues to the tip, thus dividing the nib into two tines, much like the metal dip pen nib used in a penholder. Depending upon the metal used and the shape of the nib, some dip pen nibs can be flexible and will draw a line of various widths from fine to bold when increased pressure is applied. A pen nib with these qualities can also be described as a flexible nib that can make thin to thick lines suitable for Spencerian writing. There are many articles and books written about vintage fountain pens, and many people are enthusiastic about collecting them. In discussions about the qualities of flexible nibs, they describe pen nibs as being very flexible, semi-flexible or firm. The flexible nibs are 14K gold, which allows the tines of the nib to spread apart and make a wider line when pressure is applied. When pressing to achieve this wider line, it is important for the artist to hold the pen at a somewhat low angle to the paper, to press lightly, and to move the nib slowly so that the greater supply of ink needed has time to flow from the nib. The wide line is thus made by a combination of pressure, angle, and speed.

Flexible nibs Vintage fountain pens are now my favorite pens. In my years doing production graphic drawings, I spent innumerable hours laying fixed-width black ink lines on white illustration board with Koh-I-Noor Rapidograph pens. They are a wonderful no-dip solution for the graphic artist, but they have no flex. They are as rigid as the Rotring ArtPen. Some artists prefer a firm pen that will make a uniform line, but I prefer an expressive variable line. Much of my renewed interest in sketching is due to my discovery of the vintage flexible pen nibs that have an entirely different feel when they touch the paper. At left are some vintage pens made by the Wahl Pen Company in the 1920s. These are pretty pens, but all have chips or dents that reduce their interest to collectors and make them more affordable for artists. The pens can be restored and are quite practical for daily use by artists who are sometimes tempted to be collectors as well as daily users. If you would like to find and try some vintage flexible pens, see “More About Vintage Pens” on page 60.

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gPen, Ink, and Watercolor Wash Sketching

Choose the Right Inks Waterproof inks are essential for sketching when washes will be added over the lines because their inks will not smear or wash away with water after they are dry. Because the labels describing waterproof inks can be misleading, you should learn the terminology and check the wording carefully. Following is a review of waterproof black inks for three kinds of pens: disposable pens, technical pens, and fountain pens.

Know the Difference Between Waterproof and Permanent ! The label term “waterproof” means the ink will not run if washed over. ! The label term “permanent” means the ink is lightfast. On page 14, I have also included three India inks made especially for fountain pens. Because these three are labeled both as India ink and as safe for fountain pens, they are easily confused with regular waterproof India inks that contain shellac and will clog pens. I have tested fountain pen India inks in my pens and include the results. The properties of these inks are confusing, so be aware that, although they are a dense black, they are at best water-resistant and not waterproof.

Test the Waterproof Ink in Disposable Pens Many pre-filled disposable pens are labeled as “permanent” because they will not fade from sunlight, but they may or may not be waterproof. It is very disappointing to make a crisp line drawing with untested black ink and then find that the lines all blur out or fade and run into adjacent wet areas after the watercolor wash is added. Accordingly, before buying a pre-filled disposable pen, see if the ink is indeed waterproof. Make a mark on a piece of paper similar to your sketching paper. Let the ink dry and then wet your finger and shake a drop of water over part of the mark for a puddle test. Let it soak a little to see if the ink becomes soluble and disappears into the puddle. Finally, rub a wet brush over the other end of the mark to see if it will smear. Many disposable pens also come prefilled with colored inks. I love the names of the colors. Sanguine, sepia, raw umber, terracotta, burnt sienna, red ochre, yellow ochre, graphite, and ebony all call up memories of wonderful sketches done by artists of the past. Can you visualize the aged tinted papers with earthtone line drawings that are sometimes highlighted with splashes of white chalk? You’ll find reproductions of these in books, in online galleries, and in the Gallery of Classic Drawings on our Web site.

Waterproof Ink for Technical Pens Koh-i-noor Rapidograph pens use Koh-i-noor Ultradraw ink that is waterproof, permanent, fadeless, and acid-free. This ink is labeled as non-clogging for technical pens that can be cleaned by washing, soaking, or by the action of the internal wire in the tubular points.

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gPen, Ink, and Watercolor Wash Sketching

Choose the Right Inks

Waterproof Fountain Pen Inks are Pigmented or Dye-based Fountain pen ink is water-based and can be tinted either with water-soluble dyes or with finely ground pigments held together with binders. Shellac is often added as a binder to make pigmented inks waterproof. Shellac cannot be washed away after it has dried. So it is easy to see that such pigmented ink with shellac has the potential to clog a fountain pen. It is also easy to see that water-soluble dye inks have the potential to smear when covered with a wet watercolor wash. For a fountain pen to do ink and wash sketches, the ink has to be non-clogging like water-soluble ink with dye and also waterproof like pigmented ink with shellac. So how do we find water-soluble ink that is waterproof? These two qualities that are essential for pen, ink, and watercolor wash sketching seem to be mutually exclusive. A warning: India ink with shellac is a waterproof pigmented ink and will clog fountain pens. India ink with shellac draws crisp dark lines on many kinds of paper, dries quickly, and never smears. We working artists would all, of course, love to put the thickest, blackest, most waterproof India ink in our fountain pens. But if we did, we would have pens with hard dried shellac ink inside the sacs or ink reservoirs, solidified pigments filling the ink channels, and hopelessly clogged feeds. These pens would never draw another line. In order to use fountain pens to make black or brown line drawings that will not run when a watercolor wash is brushed over the lines, we need to find a waterproof ink that does not contain shellac so it can be used inside a fountain pen without any danger of clogging the working areas of the pen. I do not know of a perfect solution, but here are three ink choices that work pretty well.

Two Pigmented Fountain Pen Inks are Waterproof Platinum Carbon Black Ink This is a smooth pigmented ink that has recently been imported from Japan. It is made from very fine particles of carbon by Platinum, the manufacturer of high quality Japanese pens. The ink has no shellac and is sold with specific suggestions about how pens should be used and cleaned frequently in order to avoid clogging. It can be difficult to find, but some have been successful in ordering it directly from the manufacturer in Japan. I bought several bottles when it was first imported and find it quite wonderful to draw with. It is smooth, free flowing, and does not feather, and if it is allowed to dry a bit, it is waterproof and does not smear or run when a wash is applied over it. It is sometimes in stock and available online, so see page 62 for product availability.

Pen & Ink Sketch No-Shellac India Black This is a black carbon pigmented ink, but it is not as dark a black as the usual India ink. This ink comes only in bottles and is waterproof when dry. The manufacturer recommends that it be used in their own line of pens, but I have used it with no problems in other inexpensive fountain pens. It washes out of pens but leaves a light grey film, so I would not use it in a pen that has a clear area for viewing the ink supply. This ink is part of a new line of products for sketching that are inported from China. See page 8 for a review of the pens and page 62 for sources. Warning: Pen & Ink pens come with a converter to use this bottled waterproof ink. The cartridges that come with the pens contain water-soluble not waterproof ink. © Copyright 2008, www.PenInkWatercolorSketching.com

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gPen, Ink, and Watercolor Wash Sketching

Choose the Right Inks

One Dye-based Fountain Pen Ink is Waterproof Noodler’s Ink in Bulletproof Black This widely available waterproof ink is an excellent solution to the waterproof vs. water-soluble problem. It has been developed in the U.S. as a dye-based ink and is described as follows: “Noodler’s Black is ‘bulletproof’. It stands up against UV Light, industrial chemicals, and water. The cellulose reactive dyes are completely water soluble in your pens and in the bottle, but once the ink dries on the paper, it is totally waterproof and permanent!” It is available in black and in a full range of colors and can be ordered from dozens of dealers in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Japan, and Singapore. Visit the Noodler’s Web site, Noodlersink.com, to see color charts, and scroll to the bottom to find the link for the list of Noodler’s dealers. See link on page 62. The ink has to touch the cellulose in the paper before it becomes waterproof. So when adding watercolor washes, there can be a problem with places where the ink may have been applied so thickly that the top of the ink stroke has dried before coming into contact with the cellulose in the paper. It does not happen often and has not been a big problem for me, but sometimes there is a bit of dye that will wash away from the top of a thick line. “A Few Thoughts on Fountain Pen Inks” at Pendemonium.com is an excellent article that discusses the properties of Noodler’s ink along with a number of other inks. Page 62 has a link to the article.

Noodler’s Ink in Eternal Brown and other colors Noodler’s waterproof dye-based inks are also available in browns and other colors. Like Noodler’s Bulletproof Black, the Eternal Brown is waterproof, works nicely in vintage or modern pens, and is just fine for adding watercolor washes. The Golden Brown is near waterproof. It has a yellow undertone that washes out as a yellow tint while leaving a crisp brown line. Either one of these browns are good for sketching, and both are especially attractive on cream colored papers. I mix in just a little Noodler’s black to make the brown tones darker and find it a plus that Noodler’s says their permanent inks can be mixed together to create custom colors. It is great to be able to get just the shade I want. For example, the black and brown together make a nice shade of walnut and were used as a mix for the sketch on the left. I squeezed drops of the mix from the fountain pen onto my palette, added water, and used it for the washes. © Copyright 2008, www.PenInkWatercolorSketching.com

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gPen, Ink, and Watercolor Wash Sketching

Choose the Right Inks Platinum Carbon Black Ink In the sketches at right of figures at a local museum, the lines were drawn with a fountain pen and were immediately washed with clear water before the ink had dried. The gray tint was released by the Carbon Black Ink

Mix of Noodler’s Bulletproof Black and Eternal Brown. The ink lines in the sketch below were done with a mixture of eight parts of brown ink to one part of black. Some of the lines were washed with clear water to make the brown tints on the cloth.

Non-Waterproof Pigmented Black India Inks I have tried three other inks that are widely advertised as non-clogging black India inks. Sanford Higgins Fountain Pen India Ink is labeled with “…non-waterproof formula for sketching…do not mix with other brands of ink.” Koh-i-noor Fount India is labeled as a “Drawing ink for fountain pens.” Pelikan Fount India is also labeled as a “Drawing ink for fountain pens.” When I sketched with these inks, the Pelikan Fount India had surprisingly good potential for pen, ink, and watercolor wash sketching, but the other two, while intense black inks, were quite unsatisfactory for sketches with watercolor wash overlays. I filled three fountain pens with these non-clogging India inks, used them twice a week, and left them filled for two months to see if the pens would become dry or clogged. I had no problems. At the same time, I put some drops of the ink in small plastic cups and let them dry out completely. Then I added clear water to the dried drops to see if the pigment in the ink would be soluble after being totally dry. The dried drops returned to liquid overnight. I expect this suggests the way these dried inks could be washed out of a fountain pen. © Copyright 2008, www.PenInkWatercolorSketching.com

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gPen, Ink, and Watercolor Wash Sketching

Choose the Right Inks

Three India Inks for Fountain Pens Higgins Fountain Pen India Ink Higgins Fountain Pen India Ink is a very free-flowing black ink that takes a little longer than usual to dry. It is definitely water-soluble; lines completely fade away if washed with water after they dry. I could see little difference between this ink and the typical black water-soluble inks produced by any number of fountain pen ink companies. The only difference may be that while many dye-based black inks have an undertone of blue or purple, this ink has an undertone that is a very standard flat gray, probably attributable to the carbon pigments. For some drawings this gray hue could be desirable. Higgins makes many varieties of India ink and several contain shellac. So note that here we are referring to the Higgins Fountain Pen India Ink as shown in the photo at right.

Koh-I-Noor Fount India The Koh-I-Noor Fount India is very similar to the Higgins Fountain Pen India above. It is freeflowing, non-clogging, and water-soluble. It has a dense black hue with a flat gray carbon undertone. This ink would work well for a line drawing where bits of water are added to pull a tinted wash from specific areas of a black line, but it is not waterproof and would run excessively if a watercolor wash were to be applied to its black lines. Koh-I-Noor makes many inks, so note that these properties refer only to the Koh-I-Noor Fount India shown in the photo at right.

Pelikan Fount India The Pelikan Fount India behaves differently. It is a black, pigmented, and very free-flowing ink, which may be due to the pigments acting as a lubricant. It takes a little longer to dry and, just like the Higgins, it has standard gray undertones. When dried and washed over, a clear water wash produces a light gray tint, but it does not disturb the dark lines underneath, which may lose a little intensity, but will remain visible. The amount of gray that it adds to a watercolor wash is not too great to be worked in as the appropriate shadows for a sketch. Pelikan Fount India is not waterproof, but it seems to be smear resistant. I put the black ink line down and let it dry a little longer than usual. I then add the wash with a soft brush. With the right amount of water in the brush, the bristles really don’t need to touch the ink lines. They can just float over the top. The lines feather a little, but it softens the picture, adding a pleasing texture and depth. Because the Pelikan Fount India is water-soluble and intended for fountain pens, I am comfortable using it in even my best pens. It is opaque and lightfast, and even though it is not waterproof, it is one of the most water-resistant inks to be found. Since Pelikan Fount India is sold at many art stores, it is easier to find than the elusive Platinum Carbon Black and a good choice for pen, ink, and wash sketching. Again, note that Pelikan makes many inks and some might clog, some are not water-resistant. The Pelikan Fount India we are referring to here is shown in the photo at right. © Copyright 2008, www.PenInkWatercolorSketching.com

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Choose the Right Inks The inks were dried for 24 hours before washes were added and 4 drops of water were puddled on each sample.

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Match Paper to Ink and Wash The right paper must be suitable for both a crisp hard-edged line of ink and a soft gradient wash of watercolor.

The Two Qualities that Papers Must Have Find a paper that will match your choice of ink. As you work with various inks and various papers you will find that some inks will work much better with certain papers and less well with others. An ink may skip or show feathering on one paper while flowing freely and leaving crisp edges on another. Certain inks just agree with certain papers. You need to be aware that there are differences and experiment to find your best combinations.

Find a paper that will accept light washes. In the same way the ink for fountain pens has to have dual qualities of being waterproof to allow a wash overlay while being water-soluble enough not to clog a pen, the paper must also have dual properties. Paper appropriate for both pen and wash must be smooth enough to let the pen nib glide freely over the surface when you are drawing an ink line but also have enough texture to accept a light wash. Papers differ in their ability to absorb liquid when ink or wash is applied. Some will also more readily release a tint when water is added to produce a tinted wash in an area next to an inked line.

Types of Papers Suitable for Ink Lines and Light Washes Choose from sheets, blocks, sketchbooks, pads, or journals. ! ! ! !

Hot Press Watercolor Paper Drawing Paper in Sketchbooks Bristol Board Journals and Multipurpose Papers

1. Hot press watercolor paper comes in sheets or blocks that are glue-bound on four sides to prevent buckling. 2. Drawing paper comes in sheets or spiral wire-bound sketchbooks that fold flat for sketching. 3. Bristol board usually comes in pads that are glue-bound on one edge, but a few brands are available in sheets. 4. Journals have a stitched binding with some pages arranged so they double in size when opened flat. © Copyright 2008, www.PenInkWatercolorSketching.com

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Match Paper to Ink and Wash

Hot Press Watercolor Paper The more common cold press watercolor paper is not suitable for pen and ink because it has an irregular surface with high and low areas designed to hold wet paint as it dries. This paper is great for washes, but it is difficult to draw ink lines on the uneven surface. Hot press watercolor paper works well because it has a surface smooth enough for the pen’s nib to draw nicely while also having a finish that accepts watercolor washes. This paper is sturdy enough to allow you to lift colors if needed or layer multiple washes by glazing (see page 37). Most watercolor papers have a gelatine sizing on the surface, so you may notice a slight change in the way your pen behaves. Hot press watercolor paper is available in full 22” x 30” sheets that can be cut into eighths to make 7.5” x 11” sheets for sketching. Several brands make blocks of their 140-lb. weight hot press paper in either 7” x 10” or 9” x 12” for plein air sketching plus larger sizes for studio work.

The watercolor papers that I use Hot Press Saunders Waterford, Lanaquarelle, and Arches These papers are all made in both hot and cold press sheets, but only the hot press is suitable for pen and ink. Saunders Waterford watercolor paper, in soft natural white 100% cotton 140-lb. hot press sheets, can be cut into eighths for size 7.5” x 11” and has surface sizing that is very compatible with the ink from my pens. Lanaquarelle 140 lb. hot press watercolor paper in 9” x 12” blocks has a softer surface sizing that does not accept ink lines quite as easily, but washes go on nicely. Arches 140-lb. hot press watercolor paper works beautifully with pen, ink, and wash, has a surface with just the right amount of tooth, and is available in sheets or blocks. Stathmore 500 Series Aquarius II This is my favorite watercolor paper for pen, ink, and wash sketches. It will not buckle even when fully saturated, so there is no need to stretch it, tape it down, or worry about how water will affect it. It is listed as cold-press but has only a slight texture and therefore is equally good for both washes and pen lines. Spiral bound pads are available in either 11” x 15” or 15” x 22” while sheets are 22” x 30”. It is acid-free and comes in only one weight, 80-lb. The light weight makes it especially nice for cutting smaller size sheets of 7.5” x 11” or 5.5” x 7.5” that can be tucked into a sketch kit.

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Match Paper to Ink and Wash

Drawing Papers in Sketchbooks Look for art papers that are acid-free. Heavy drawing paper of about 90-lb. is often bound into sketchbooks. Their covers should state that they can accept pen and ink plus light washes or wet media. Drawing papers come with either a smooth surface or a surface with a bit of tooth, in either bright white or a natural tint. Since you’ve seen the huge selection of sketchbooks and pads of artist’s papers in stores, you know you can find one in the size you prefer. I usually choose paper from either the Bee Paper Company or Strathmore Papers. See page 62 for links to their Web sites. Both are widely available in the U.S. The Aquabee Artist Papers are excellent. Strathmore papers come in four qualities for different levels of work, from Student to Series 300, 400, and 500.

The spiral bound sketchbooks with drawing paper that I use Many drawing papers are available both in sheets and sketchbooks. My three favorite sketchbooks are pictured and described below. Strathmore 400 Series Drawing paper sketch books The Strathmore 400 Series is artist quality paper for sketching or finished art. Pads have either a smooth or a medium finish. The warm cream color of this 80 lb. paper is perfect for brown inks, and the medium surface pads are suitable for pen, ink, and light washes. These pads are great for plein air work because they come in many sizes, 4" x 6", 6" x 8", 8" x 10", and 9" x 12", and have a spiral binding. With just 24 sheets in each pad, they are inexpensive and, more important, they are light and thin enough to slip easily into a sketch kit. I can’t see hiking around with a big, thick 100-sheet sketchbook when I plan to sit and sketch for an hour on one or two pieces of paper. Aquabee Super Deluxe Sketch Book #808 This longtime favorite of numerous working artists has 60 pages of 93-lb. heavyweight natural white drawing paper that equally accepts both watercolor washes and ink line drawings. It comes in six sizes, 4" x 6", 6" x 6", 6" x 9", 6" x 12", 9" x 9", and 9" x 12", so there is a size to fit every sketch kit. Aquabee Co-Mo Sketch #820 This is a 30 sheet artist grade paper sketch pad from Aquabee with a heavyweight 80-lb. textured paper in five sizes from 5” x 7” to 9” x 12” and larger for use with pencil, pen and ink, and light washes. To provide better capability for a watercolor wash, this paper is double sized to accept wet media. It also has an excellent tooth to accept pen and ink for line drawing. The pages are perforated for easy removal. Strathmore 400 Series

Aquabee Artist Grade Super Deluxe Sketch Book and Co-Mo Sketch

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Match Paper to Ink and Wash

Bristol Board in Pads English paper makers sent their paper to the town of Bristol to have two sheets pasted together to make a thicker sheet and thus the paper got its name. Pads of Bristol board come in either smooth or vellum finish. Both work well for drawing ink lines, with the plate finish being especially smooth and delightful for pen work. The vellum has more texture and is a better choice for a light wash. The vellum surface may absorb quickly, making it difficult to smooth a wash, and if paint needs to be lifted, the surface of some Bristols can peel away. On the plus side, if you want to make multiple copies of a line drawing, Bristol can easily be cut to 8 ½” x 11” and then fed through the straight pass tray of a copy machine or a laser printer. Bristol board is easier to find in pads than in sheets. I usually buy the board in pads of 9” x 12” or 11” x 14” and cut the pages into sizes suitable for studio or fieldwork. My preferred size for studio is 9” x 12” or 7” x 11” while I like 6” x 9” or 5.5” x 7” for quick outdoor sketching.

The Bristol board that I use The Aquabee Artist Bristol board is artist grade for finished art work. The Strathmore Student grade Bristol feathers with pen and ink, but may be okay for markers. The Strathmore Series 300 Bristol is economical for beginners; Series 400 Bristol is for intermediate users and artists’ finished work; and Series 500 Bristol is for professional artists. Aquabee Bristol #1171 This100 lb. Bristol vellum is professional artist grade, accepts watercolor and, though not designated for pen and ink, has a fine toothy texture that is very pleasant to draw on. It has excellent capability for wash and is easy to feed through a copier for duplicate copies. It is my favorite Bristol board. Strathmore Bristol Series 300, 400, and 500 Either the smooth or vellum surface is available in each of the Series 300, 400, and 500. The smooth surfaces work best for sketching fine lines and hatching while the vellum finishes are best for ink lines when combined with watercolor washes. All three grades are good choices, but the Series 500 is especially nice. It is a 100% cotton Bristol board, with a wonderful surface that will accept the finest pen line along with a smooth watercolor wash. The Series 500 is for professional artists. The vellum finish is especially nice for small watercolor washes.

Aquabee Artist Grade Bristol

Strathmore Bristol Boards Student grade

Series 300

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Series 400

Series 500

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gPen, Ink, and Watercolor Wash Sketching

Match Paper to Ink and Wash

You May Prefer Journals or Multipurpose Paper You can choose all sorts of papers from Moleskine journals to reams of office multipurpose paper. For an elegant sketchbook go to the Moleskine Web site where they list Henry Matisse, Vincent Van Gogh, and Pablo Picasso among the artists who have used Moleskine journals for sketching. See links on page 62. Many varieties of journals are pictured and described, including the Moleskine Art Books listed below. ! Pocket and Large Watercolor Books ! Pocket and Large Sketch Books ! Story Board Notebook

For the most utilitarian paper, go to your local office supply store and get a ream of 8.5” x 11” multipurpose office printing paper in a smooth white. This paper works well for experimenting with pens and inks. It is available in several weights, including a heavier 24 lb. I was surprised in reading the specifications for these papers to learn that they are usually acid-free for archival storage.

Choose Sketchbooks or Single Sheets Do you want to fill sketchbooks with your drawings or sketch on separate sheets of paper? Sketchbooks make a nice record of progress, keep things orderly, are pleasant to thumb through, and can be used as journals for notes as well as for drawings. I prefer separate sheets of paper because I need only carry two or three pieces when I go outside to sketch. The final sketches can be spread out and looked at all at once to be compared and analyzed more easily. I also need single sheets when I want to scan a piece or put it in a copy machine. The choices are many and the choices are yours.

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Match Paper to Ink and Wash

Backing Boards for Sheets of Paper For sketching, many artists use sketchbooks with a firm cardboard back or a block of watercolor paper that has its own firm backing. I carry only a few sheets of paper at a time, so I use a variety of sturdy materials for backing. For light watercolor washes the paper does not need to be stretched, but because it will buckle a little, the corners need to be tacked down. The nib of the pen needs a firm surface to press against, so softer surfaces, like standard white foamboard, do not make the best backing. Gatorboard or Gator Foam Board is a new backing board. This material has been hard to find, but is now becoming available in art stores. It is similar to foam core board, but has a denser foam center and a thin but firm wood fiber veneer. Paper can be taped to the board, but I prefer to staple it. I use a regular stapler that will fold flat and just staple the corners and the center edges of the paper’s long dimension. The staples go straight into the board and pop out easily when a palette knife is inserted under them. The 3/16” thickness works fine for my small paper sizes, but ½” is also available. Gatorboard is manufactured in large size sheets and then cut into smaller sizes by some online art stores. I get the 18” x 24”size at DanielSmith.com (see link on page 62) and cut it into even smaller pieces for backing sketching paper. Heavy cardboard, plastic or tempered board clipboard, and plexiglas sheet Cardboard from old sketchbooks makes a good backing as do clipboards made of tempered board or plastic in either 6”x 9” or 9” x 12” size. My favorite outdoor backing is Plexiglas in the 3/32” thickness. It can be cut into custom sizes and smoothed so that paper can be clipped on with small bulldog or binder clips to make a lightweight board for carrying. Sketchbooks Bound with Black Covers or Spiral Bindings

Plastic Clipboards and Gatorboard Backing Boards

Plexiglas Sheets

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gPen, Ink, and Watercolor Wash Sketching

Let’s Go Sketching Okay, we’ve got our pens, ink, and paper, let’s start sketching.

The First Mark on the White Paper Whether to begin with pencil or ink is always a question. While no initial pencil drawing means greater spontaneity, drawing produces greater accuracy. When I first returned to pen and ink sketching after many years of work in graphic design, I drew most of the composition with a 4H pencil so that everything was pretty well planned out before I began to do the final inking. Then I decided that sketching should be fun, not work. And since the fun part was laying down the wonderfully wet inky lines, I cut out the pencil. At first, I dropped back to putting in just three pencil lines, one for the horizon, a dot to indicate the focal point and two diagonals that would roughly establish a simple composition. Then I found that once I started with even just the three pencil lines, I found it hard to stop drawing. So I cut those out as well.

Preliminary drawing can be done with your brush or your pen. Before I began pen and ink sketching, I had been enjoying painting watercolors on the beach. Drawing first in pencil is traditional for watercolorists because the light pencil lines are erased or covered up by the later application of paint. I had been penciling first, but then I began to ask myself, why should I hide the drawing when it had been part of my initial concept for the picture? I wanted to use the same medium throughout, and so I eliminated the penciling before painting with watercolors and started my preliminary drawing with a brush and a barely tinted wash that could be modified as the work progressed and be integrated into it. After switching to pen and ink as my new favorite medium, I began as I had with watercolor and first drew with a pencil. The ink from the pen was dark and could not be lightened, like the tinted wash for a watercolor. But again, I realized that I wanted to work with the same medium from start to finish, that if I were to first draw with a pencil, I would unconciously be prompted to think about different ways to handle the pencil line and pencil values. I would be planning the final picture in ways more appropriate for a pencil drawing than for a pen and ink drawing. So I developed a dot-to-dot system for preliminary drawing and now use it to block out my composition. I find it especially helpful for drawing figures, where proportion is important. I begin directly with the ink pen and put a few faint dots and extra fine lines on the page to indicate the placement of major objects. These are so faint that they can be mostly incorporated into the final sketch. The finished work is far more integrated when one medium is used from inception to completion, so I recommend you try the dot-to-dot system to see if it works for you. © Copyright 2008, www.PenInkWatercolorSketching.com

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gPen, Ink, and Watercolor Wash Sketching

Let’s Go Sketching Let the composition plan itself. In the same way that I now begin to draw with the pen and not a preliminary pencil, I combine the action with the attitude of, “Don’t plan it, just do it.” I don’t plan the composition. I just start drawing whatever interests me most and I draw it somewhere in the middle of my paper, usually somewhat to the right or left of center. I add details around this centrally focused area until a rough composition emerges. I think it is possible to sketch in this way, working without a final plan for the composition, because a sketch is a free form shape, a vignette, a shape that fades away with no clear border. It does not have to fill the entire rectangular shape of the paper or canvas, as is necessary in a traditional painting. However, it’s a very good idea to start with a sheet of paper larger than the final sketch will be. Otherwise it’s easy to get too close to the edge and run out of paper before a pleasing composition emerges. I like drawing this way without a final plan. It all seems very free and easy, like cooking without a recipe. The results are a little unpredictable, but it’s creative and exciting to see how it all turns out.

Some ways to correct mistakes in an ink line sketch. If you put a line down and it seems to be a mistake, consider whether you can work it into your picture: hatch it (see page 24), double it, turn it in a new direction, or make it part of the background. Look at your composition. If you can use more dark in the area of the mistake, add pen strokes for mid or dark tones. If adding strokes won’t work, then perhaps you can add another element to balance the composition and distract the eye. In a sketch, mistakes can often be incorporated into the drawing, and I’ve found that sometimes they turn out to be the best part. If the mistake cannot be worked into the picture and is a big problem, wait until your piece is finished and dry. Then gently scratch the mark from the surface with a hobby knife.

Tips for Pen and Ink Lines ! In a sketch, a thick line will give separation to objects and suggest three-dimensional depth. In the 1920s, ads for fountain pens described pens with flexible nibs as pen points that would “shade in every direction.” They were describing the thin to thick line that such pens made and suggesting that the line would become shaded as more dark ink was laid down. ! Try using two pens in one sketch. Use one pen with black ink and the other with brown or some other hue of your choice. One can be waterproof for a stable line while the other is water-soluble for ink washes. ! When sketching, leave something to the imagination of the viewer so he or she can participate in the creative process. ! Don’t waste time making big corrections to a sketch. You are almost always better served by putting a picture away, with all its imperfections, and starting a new one. “That was yesterday, this is today,” is a good attitude to develop. ! When the first sketch is not as perfect as you might wish, try working smaller the second time. It encourages you to simplify and put in only essential information. Artists often like their thumbnail sketches better than the final renderings. I know I do. The thumbnail is spontaneous, has only the basic details, and is exactly what a good sketch should be. ! When sketching, set a time limit, and draw whatever you can in 10 or 15 minutes. Working all over the paper, put all the big shapes in first, and then add as much detail as you have time for. ! One of my fellow sketchers also says that if you are in doubt and can’t decide about making a change in your picture, “Don’t.” ! Sketching should show the essence of an object or scene, not the actual appearance. © Copyright 2008, www.PenInkWatercolorSketching.com

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gPen, Ink, and Watercolor Wash Sketching

Use Hatches for Tones Tonal values are one of the most important elements of a sketch. A sketch done with ink will automatically have tonal values that are rendered by various kinds of hatching or stippling.

Tone, value, tint, or shade all indicate whether an area is light or dark. In a sketch, tonal values are used to create depth, with lighter values generally moving forward and darker values receding. Tones in sharp contrast, such as white and black, are used to direct the viewer’s attention to a focal point. Shading from white through a range of grays is used to show the three-dimensional shape of objects.

Use hatches for tonal values, textures, and direction. Drawings done with pencil, charcoal, or watercolor wash employ light application of their pigments to create tones or values. Pen and ink drawings use multiple small marks of their dark ink and let the viewer’s eye blend these small dark marks to create lighter or middle tones and values. Here are some pen and ink techniques for adding these areas of light and dark values by hatching. Hatching .......................... Parallel lines Short Hatches.................. The same as hatching, but with many shorter lines Cross-hatching ................ Parallel lines drawn at right angles over one another Contour Hatching ........... Lines that follow the shape of an object or area Random Hatching ........... Small straight lines at various angles Scumbling ....................... Random hatching or small scribbles Stippling .......................... Multiple small dots placed to create tonal areas Continuous Stipple .......... A long unbroken meandering line of dots Broken Stipple ................ Small curled lines and dots placed together Scribble ........................... Small lines drawn in a variety of directions Textures .......................... Marks that suggest the texture of an area or object

Tips ! Diagonals look best if the lines all follow at the

!

!

! !

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same angle. They can be combined with dots and scribbles. Hatching with lighter colors of ink can also change the value of an area. Imagine a landscape done with dark brown ink that includes grassy fields heavily hatched with a soft olive colored ink for the grasses. Many extra fine pen lines can be drawn so they will combine to create a pale gray area with a tinted value. Know when to stop with hatching detail, leaving lots of white space for contrast. More or wider lines can be used to create areas with medium tones or darker shades. 24

gPen, Ink, and Watercolor Wash Sketching

Use Hatches for Tones The azaleas below were sketched with a mix of waterproof Noodler’s Black and Brown inks and water-soluble Sheaffer Skrip Brown. Cross hatching plus wash from the brown ink is used for the shading.

This drawing of the Oregon coast uses a mix of waterproof Platinum Carbon Black and water-soluble Diamine Sepia. Hatching and scribbles were used for tones and textures along with a sepia wash for the clouds and water.

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gPen, Ink, and Watercolor Wash Sketching

Brushes and New Water Brushes And now we move beyond sketching with just ink and a pen. Brushes are among the artist’s most important tools and come in a bewildering number of types. New water brushes, also written as “waterbrushes”, are the latest addition and of special interest to sketchers because they are delightfully portable.

Flats, Pointed Rounds, and Hake Brushes I use Winsor Newton Sceptre Gold II brushes, a combination of red sable hair with synthetic fibers, in Series 606 for flats, and Series 101 for pointed rounds. When I want an extra soft brush, I use a pure sable or an oriental hake brush. I use a group of seven brushes for longer sessions, but use only one flat and one round in my small sketch kit.

My three flat brushes Because a sketch requires drawing techniques all the way through to its completion, I prefer flat brushes. To me, they are a better drawing tool than a pointed brush. With a flat brush, a horizontal stroke makes a thin line, a vertical stroke makes a line the width of the brush, and a diagonal stroke makes a flexible thin to thick line. Their fluid lines can show direction, their flexible strokes can define shapes, and their corners can add detail, so they work well for drawing. They are also good for washes because the width of the flat makes tinting bigger areas fast, and speed is often important in a sketch where the subject may well be in motion or the end of your sketching time is imminent. I use Winsor Newton Series 606 flat brushes with short handles in ¼”, ½” and ¾” sizes.

My three pointed round brushes Pointed rounds are the traditional watercolor brush. I use Winsor Newton Series 101 with short handles in sizes 6 and 12. Because layering watercolor over an ink line requires a light stroke with a soft touch that will not disturb the ink line underneath, I also use a soft red sable in size 8. If you work larger, you will want larger size brushes.

My one hake brush The Ron Ranson Hake brush by Pro Arte in the small size (7/8” wide) can be very helpful for washes. Made of soft super-absorbent goat hair, a hake brush can hold lots of water and release it with a controlled flow. When squeezed dry, it can pick up excess water from a wash and blend pigment at the edges.

Dental Care Brushes to Correct Mistakes If you make a mistake on a watercolor painting and want to correct it, this is the brush that will make it easy. It’s a Proxabrush® and there are many other brands and sizes on sale in the dental products aisle of pharmacies. These brushes have very small, very soft bristles designed to clean tooth enamel. The gentle quality will help you lift an unwanted area of pigment from watercolor paper. Just wet the soft bristles, rub gently, and blot with a twist of paper towel. © Copyright 2008, www.PenInkWatercolorSketching.com

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Brushes and New Water Brushes

Brush Care and Transport Depth of your water pan Use a shallow container for your rinse water so that when you dip the brush, water does not usually get above the metal ferrule. Only the bristles and ferrule need to be rinsed, and keeping the wooden handle dry prevents water from getting inside the ferrule, where it can swell the wood and crack the paint of the handle, and even soften the glue, causing the ferrule to separate from the handle. I learned this the hard way before taking some care not to let the handles get too wet. I now have some brushes with the handles held in place by layers of masking tape. Also, do not dip your best sable brushes in ink and be sure to wash your brushes after each use. See the picture of my painting tray on page 44.

Drying your brushes Devise a way to dry them with the bristles pointing down. I made simple brush hangers as shown on the previous page. Just use a piece of foam core board, a stretchy tube sock, a threaded needle, and a shoestring. The brushes slip in easily and the hangers can be placed on a doorknob or any convenient hook to dry.

Carrying your brushes for plein air, sketch group, or class Save or make a skinny plastic bag that is two inches longer than the longest brush you plan to carry. Cut a long skewer or piece of stiff plastic to an inch shorter than the bag. Put the brushes in the bag, fold the last inch of the bag over the skewer and put a small clip on it. Put a rubber band around the bag to hold the handles all together. The bag will be longer than the brushes so the tips will be protected and the bag will tuck into the smallest spot of your travel case.

New Water Brushes You can now carry your water and your brush in one convenient little package. The Japanese water brush, also spelled waterbrush, is a great addition for outdoor sketching. You unscrew the brush and fill the reservoir with water. When you want to add a wash, you squeeze the handle to wet the brush and either wash the clear water over a water-soluble ink line, or pick up any color of watercolor paint from your palette and add a tinted wash to your sketch. Water brushes are made by several manufacturers, but the Niji Waterbrush is the most widely available. They come in five sizes: a short handled mini with a medium round tip and four with long handles. Three of these come with small, medium, and large round tips and one has a 12mm flat tip. Since the mini size is the only size with a short handle, for travel when I only want to take one brush, I unscrew the short handle from the round tip and interchange it with the more versatile wide flat tip. Both brushes seem to work just fine with their handles switched and the short handle fits best in my travel kit. © Copyright 2008, www.PenInkWatercolorSketching.com

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gPen, Ink, and Watercolor Wash Sketching

Watercolor Paints There are many wonderful paints to choose from. The ones shown here are just one brand from many artist paints of excellent quality.

Color Terminology Because color theory uses several terms in specific ways, it’s helpful to know the definitions of, and synonyms for, hue, saturation, and value.

Hue, color Hue is the color as indicated by its name. To change the hue of a color, another color is mixed with it. Mix a blue hue and a yellow hue to make a green hue. Mix red and violet hues to make a red violet hue.

Saturation, chroma, intensity, or purity If a color contains no white, gray, or black, then it has a high purity of hue. It has a high intensity, saturation, or chroma.

Value, tint, tone, or shade Value indicates whether a color is light or dark. Add white to blue for a light blue tint, add gray for a medium blue tone, or add black for a dark blue shade. Value is a hue’s lightness, darkness, or brightness. Yellow Yellow Green

Yellow Orange

Orange

Green

Blue Green

Red Orange

Blue

Red

Blue Violet

Red Violet Violet

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Watercolor Paints

My Palette and the Color Circle I like working with a palette of twelve colors chosen to somewhat match the pure hues in the color wheel shown on page 28. In the color wheel, the three primaries are yellow, red, and blue. The three secondaries are orange, violet, and green. The six tertiaries are yellow orange, red orange, red violet, blue violet, blue green, and yellow green.

My palette Winsor Newton offers 96 Artist colors, so my job of picking a palette of twelve was not easy. Because I like to be able to lift the paint for white highlights or correcting mistakes, all but one of my choices is listed as nonstaining. Some lift more easily than others, but none stain deeply. All but two are transparent and three are granulating. All but two are single pigment to simplify mixing. My choices are listed first by the name of the hue, then by the Winsor Newton color number and name. The pigment number is shown next. For the first color shown below, the color name is Yellow, the pigment number is PY154 and is expressed with a capital P for Pigment, a capital Y for Yellow hue and the number 154 for the pigment used. Hue............................... #Color Winsor Name ............... Pigment number ..... Opaque, Transparent, or Staining Yellow .......................... #730 Winsor Yellow ................. PY154 .................... Transparent, Staining Yellow Orange ............. #731 Winsor Yellow Deep ....... PY65 ...................... Transparent Orange ......................... #724 Winsor Orange ................ PO62 ...................... Opaque Red Orange .................. #074 Burnt Sienna ................... PR101 .................... Transparent Red ............................... #548 Quinacridone Red ........... PR209 .................... Transparent Red Violet .................... #545 Quinacridone Magenta ... PR122 .................... Transparent Violet ............................ #491 Permanent Mauve ........... PV16 ...................... Transparent, Granulating Blue Violet ................... I mix blue and violet for this color, and use its space on my palette for ..................................... #609 Sepia ............................... PBk6 and PR101 .... Opaque Blue .............................. #667 Ultramarine Blue (GS) .... PB27 ...................... Transparent Blue Green ................... #010 Antwerp Blue .................. PB27 ...................... Transparent Green ........................... #692 Viridian ............................ PG18 ...................... Transparent, Granulating Yellow Green ............... I mix yellow and green for this color, and use its space on my palette for ..................................... #554 Raw Umber. ..................... PBr7 and PY42 ..... Transparent, Granulating The Winsor Newton Web site provides extensive information about color. It is presented in an easy-tounderstand way with many illustrations for topics such as granulation and transparency. See links on page 62.

My Mini Pillbox Palette This selection of just four half pan colors is super small for sketching in the field or on an airplane. All are Winsor Newton Artist Watercolors: Yellow: #730 Winsor Yellow, PY154, Transparent, Staining Red Orange: #074 Burnt Sienna, PR101, Transparent Red Violet: #545 Quinacridone Magenta, PR122, Transparent Blue: #667 Ultramarine Blue © Copyright 2008, www.PenInkWatercolorSketching.com

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Watercolor Paints

Arrangement of Complementary Colors on My Palette My palette is arranged like a color wheel so that I can easily tell which color is the complement of another. Mixing a color with its complement will, theoretically, produce black. In actuality, the two complements used in about equal quantities will produce an interesting dark gray. Adding just a bit of the complementary color can reduce the intensity of an overly-saturated color and make it somewhat grayer. Because each color in the box is diagonally opposite its complement, it is very easy for me to quickly identify and locate a complementary color and change the saturation, intensity, or purity of any hue.

The colors and their complements are as follows: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6.

Yellow

Yellow Green

yellow and violet yellow orange and blue violet orange and blue red orange and blue green red and green red violet and yellow green

Yellow Orange

Green

Orange

Red Orange

Blue Green

Blue

Red

Blue Violet

Red Violet

Violet

In the pictures above, you can see the arrangement of the paints in the paintboxes that I use for my palette. The paints are stored in rows that make a rectangle rather than the circle shown in a color wheel. The paints are in half or full pans. These pans can be purchased separately and filled from tubes. I move colors in and out of my palette as I continue to tailor it for specific needs. I like the little pans because I can easily and neatly swap colors as needs change. Even though the colors are in a rectangle, I am able to keep the colors in an arrangement so that their complementary colors are quickly identifiable. As you can see in the picture, the placement of the pans of color mimics the arrangement of the spokes on the color wheel. A circular palette might be easier, but I find it works quite well to follow the diagonal lines and quickly locate complementary colors. Palettes of many kinds are rectangular rather than circular, so you may also find it helpful to think of complementary colors in a rectangle rather than always as a circle or a color wheel. © Copyright 2008, www.PenInkWatercolorSketching.com

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Watercolor Paints

Three Primary, Three Secondary, and Six Tertiary Colors Each triad is equally spaced around the color wheel. The primary triad below is marked with a red line, the secondary triad is marked with a black line, and the two tertiary triads are marked thin blue and green lines. It can be useful to consider the triads when choosing colors for painting.

Ways to use the triads The three primaries, red, yellow, and blue, make a triad on the color wheel. The three secondary colors, green, violet, and orange, are opposite these on the color circle. Yellow is opposite violet, red is opposite green, and blue is opposite orange. The three secondary colors are the complements of the three primaries. For a vibrant sketch, I will choose and mix the yellow, red, and blue primaries for my colors. For a more subdued landscape, I might put the secondaries, orange, purple, and green, on my palette. For a lighthearted youthful sketch, the tertiaries of deep yellow, magenta, and turquoise go very well together. And, on my own palette, the final set of tertiaries is made up of three superbly compatible earth tones, raw umber, burnt sienna, and sepia. I choose to replace the yellow green with raw umber, the red orange with burnt sienna, and the purple blue with sepia. Color choices are very personal, so it is only a suggestion that you might wish to consider these triads when you are choosing your compatible colors.

Place complementary colors together to enhance one another. Complementary colors enhance each other. These are the colors that are opposite one another on the color wheel, and when placed close together, they make an intense color combination. To illustrate this, think red and green for Christmas, yellow and violet for Easter, or the line from the fight song of the University of Illinois: We’re loyal to you Illinois, We’re “Orange and Blue,” Illinois, We’ll back you so stand ‘Gainst the best in the land,...

Mix complementary colors together to gray one another. As we discussed before, theoretically, when all three primary colors are mixed together they will make black, but actual mixes usually turn out to be only dark brown or near black. Each primary color plus its complementary color will contain all three primary colors. For example, mixing the primary red with its complementary green is the same as mixing all three primaries. The red will be mixed with the yellow and blue that are combined in the green. So adding just a touch of green to red will move the color a little toward black, reduce the purity or intensity of the red, and gray it just a little. Since colors in nature often appear less intense than the highly saturated paints from tubes on an artist’s palette, it is useful to know that a little orange will gray or dull a blue, a bit of yellow can take the edge off a violet, and so forth for every color on the color wheel. Just look at the colors that are opposites on the wheel and you will know which colors will gray one another when mixed. © Copyright 2008, www.PenInkWatercolorSketching.com

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gPen, Ink, and Watercolor Wash Sketching

Watercolor Paints

A Fun Exercise to Find Complementary Colors This is a simple exercise to demonstrate that your eye will create and display its own complement for a color. Art classes of children or adults enjoy trying this demonstration. You only need one 8.5” x 11” sheet of white paper for each participant and some brightly-colored crayons or markers. Fold the white paper in half along the 8.5” dimension. Choose a bright color, draw a big circle on one half of the paper and fill it in solidly with the color. Print a big, short word above the circle. With a black pencil, make a small dot in the center of the other half of the folded sheet of paper. In a well lighted room, hold the colored side of the folded paper in front of you and stare intently at the colored circle and printed word side as you count to 20. Then turn the folded paper over and focus on the black dot as you stare at the other side for 20 seconds. The afterimage of the circle and word will show on the white half and will appear to be colored in the complementary color of the circle you drew and colored. There are lots of scientific explanations for this phenomenon, but here we are interested only in how it affects the pretty pictures we draw and confirms the good judgment of our eyes when we choose complementary colors.

CAT

If you have a group doing this exercise, each person can use a different color. Pass the sheets around so everyone can see how the eye will create a complementary colored circle as an afterimage for any color viewed.

Tips for Working with Colors Warm colors and cool colors It is useful to know which colors are warm because they tend to move forward in a painting while cool colors tend to recede into the background. Colors closer to red are considered warm while those closer to blue are considered cool. The warm side of the color wheel will be from yellow green through yellow, yellow orange, orange, and red orange to red. The cool side will be from red violet through violet, blue violet, blue, and blue green to green.

Start with a clean palette. Being a child of the depression, I always start with a clean palette. Otherwise, I know that I will be tempted to use an inappropriate color just to use it up, so that it will not be wasted. In my painting box shown at right, the mixing areas on each side can be easily rinsed or the half pans can be removed so that the entire box can be washed.

Above: Sketch of my palette and sponge.

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gPen, Ink, and Watercolor Wash Sketching

Let’s Paint the Wash There is a difference between a watercolor painting with ink lines and an ink line drawing with a watercolor wash. I’m not sure which I like best. Those black metal boxes of Devoe watercolors with eight little pans of paint in yellow, orange, red, purple, blue, green, brown, and black still evoke magical memories for me, and I love to watch watercolor pigments diffuse as they flow into watery areas of the paper. I often start out thinking I am doing a drawing but end up with more of a painting. Since they are all mixed media, it probably does not matter.

Begin with the Lines, the Wash, or Both Together? First complete the line sketch and then add the wash. In Let’s Go Sketching, we discussed beginning with the ink lines. This is the more traditional way to work. In the 19th century, before color reproductions of paintings, engravings such as those prepared from J.M.W. Turner’s watercolors were tinted with washes by assistants and sold in established London galleries. This kind of tinted line sketch has always been a desirable way to work because the results are very attractive. Today, we too can make an ink line sketch and complete the picture later by adding the colored washes. It is sometimes helpful for those of us who are working outdoors to complete the ink sketch quickly on site from live subjects and then tint it later in our studios. When adding washes in this way, remember that you are still drawing, not just filling in areas. Try to recapture the direction of your pen lines with brush strokes as you add tints to your original drawing. At top left is a pen and ink drawing of a vacant lot. I duplicated it on a copy machine using heavy paper and tinted the copy with watercolor washes as shown at bottom left.

Add washes as you sketch the lines. This is the fastest way to work. If you draw the lines and add the tonal washes immediately, there will be less need for adding tone with a lot of time consuming hatching or stippling. The washes are usually pulled from the inked lines so the sketches are monochromes. But additional watercolor tints can be added as you work and can produce nice results. See the sketch of a street corner on page 40. © Copyright 2008, www.PenInkWatercolorSketching.com

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gPen, Ink, and Watercolor Wash Sketching

Let’s Paint the Wash Paint the wash first and then add the lines. This can be a spontaneous and free way to work. Use a tonal wash to define the areas—a sky, the land, a group of trees—and then add detail with dark, crisp ink lines. This method begins with watercolor and makes it easy to first block out areas or big images. The composition is thus determined before the ink detail is added, so the sketch will have a fresh look. With the sweep and form of your drawing already established, you may find that you need much less detail than you might have first thought. But with the washes added first, the paper may still be damp when the ink lines are being drawn. If they hit a wet area, they may spread or bleed into the wet area. This can be what you intended or it can be a big problem. When working this way, it is most important to tilt your paper sideways to catch the light that will let you see the sheen on the paper. If it has a satin shine, it is still too wet and the lines will spread. Another test is to touch it or test first with only a small dot of ink.

Soak the watercolor paper in the sink and slap it on Plexiglas or a plastic clipboard. This is a fun way to do the wash before doing the pen lines. While the paper is still pretty wet, use a ½” or 1” flat brush for your drawing tool. Pick up a little paint by wiping the brush across a supply of thick, rather dry paint that you have spread out on your palette. When drawing with the flat brush use the same motions you would use with a wide oblique pencil. Quickly draw objects on the wet paper with the dryer brush. Use several colors to map out the main objects in your picture. This is a very fast way to work because the shapes or objects are established by the big strokes of color or tone. The necessity for details is minimized. After most areas have dried, pen lines can be used for the final accents and definitions. The cafe scene below was begun in this way.

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gPen, Ink, and Watercolor Wash Sketching

Let’s Paint the Wash

Some Painting Tips White highlights Oil and acrylic painters customarily add white or light paint for highlights as the final touch to their paintings. For transparent watercolor paintings, white paint is not an option. White paints are opaque and detract from the luminous quality of the white paper shining through the transparent watercolor paint. Some watercolorists determine the placement of highlights at the beginning, when they are planning their composition. They then use masking fluid, clear wax, or removable tape shaped to protect the paper in areas that they wish to retain as pure white in the final painting. They do this with great skill and it works well, but it is not very practical for quick washes on sketches. My solution is to use a palette of non-staining paints. The most luminous results are obtained by leaving the white highlights unpainted, but if I ere, I can lift bits of wash for highlights after the sketch is completed and the wash has dried.

Tactics to reduce smearing the ink lines ! Let the ink dry before applying the wash. This is easier outdoors, because the wind will dry the ink faster. ! Use a more absorbent paper, such as one with a vellum finish. ! Don’t build up layers of ink. The top of a heavy ink line will smear more easily because it is not in contact with the paper and is not as firmly bonded to it. ! Use a soft brush. Lay the wash on with one stroke and do not go back over the ink lines after they have been dampened by that first stroke.

Duplicate your line drawing and then experiment with washes on copies. It is easy to put your ink sketch in a copy machine and make a duplicate so you can draw once and tint twice. You can also scan the ink sketch and print copies on a laser printer. A laser printer works best because the printed lines of an inkjet printer may not be waterproof. Cut a sheet of lightweight drawing paper or smooth Bristol board to 8 1/2” x 11” and feed it into the printer’s straight pass through tray. Duplicating a sketch is useful if the original ink lines were done with a water-soluble ink and you want to add a watercolor wash over the sketched lines. Or you might want to print a brown ink sketch in black. You can also experiment with different kinds of wash or tonal effects. I sometimes make copies so that I can add tonal washes to one copy while trying various hatches and tonal line effects on another. It is a good way to learn.

Watercolor is a very exacting medium. When you run up against a technique that is giving you trouble, practice it. I once painted skies for four days trying to get perfect soft edges on the clouds. I did them one after the other and labeled each one with the different technique I was trying. Wet the paper first, then put the blues in at the top, the yellow near the horizon, and the dull violet shadow under each cloud. Let the colors run and soften. It all ran together. Wet the top of the sky only and paint blue down to the clouds. Then wet other areas separately and paint with other colors. The clouds were not soft enough; they looked like marshmallows in the sky. Paint the whole sky and blot out the clouds with tissue. The clouds looked like tissue blots. Soak the whole paper first, then wet special areas just before painting. Hold paper at an angle to the light in order to judge wetness by the sheen on the paper. The paper dried while I was busily holding it to the light. Try different brushes and different papers. I now have 37 pictures of skies, and in retrospect they don’t look all that bad. I never did figure out a formula to let me create a perfect cloud-filled sky every time, but I am no longer hesitant to try. I know I can add an acceptable sky. © Copyright 2008, www.PenInkWatercolorSketching.com

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gPen, Ink, and Watercolor Wash Sketching

Let’s Paint the Wash

Water or Wet Paint Always Flows Into A Less Wet Area Remember the four ways water and pigment will flow when the brush touches the paper. Wet paint onto dry paper ............... The wet paint will stay where it is placed. Dry paint onto wet paper ............... The dry paint will stay where it is placed. Dry paint onto dry paper ................ The dry paint will stay where it is placed. If the paper is rough, the color will adhere only to the high areas, creating a textured effect. Wet paint onto wet paper ............... This is the method that requires judgement and practice. If wet paint is put onto paper that has been previously washed and is not yet dry, it will produce a back run. When you add paint to a previously painted area that is still wet, squeeze water from your brush and use paint that is a little thicker.

Use brushes to pick up water from the paper. When applying wet paint with brushes, remember that even though a brush is usually used to lay paint down, it can also be used to pick up unwanted paint. Water always moves from the wetter area to the dryer area, so the paint will first move from the wet brush down to the dry paper. If you have too much wash on the paper, just use your fingers to wring or squeeze the moisture from your brush. Touch the moisture-free bristles to the wash and the wet paint will be sucked right back up into the brush.

Carmel Beach in California on Christmas Day, 2007. To me, landscape sketches are more interesting with people. © Copyright 2008, www.PenInkWatercolorSketching.com

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gPen, Ink, and Watercolor Wash Sketching

Let’s Paint the Wash How to soften the edges of a wash. As I was trying to improve my watercolors, articles I read on painting techniques always said to soften the edges of a wash, but they never told me enough so that I could figure how to do it. You may wish to try this system that I finally worked out. At the edge of a wash while it is still wet, the pigment may concentrate in a puddle along the edge where the water ends. Use a flat, dry brush to make short strokes in reverse to push the pigment back into the painted area and soften the edges. Wet the working brush first, then wring it dry with your fingers. You do not want to add any additional water to the area or you will create a back run and one of those ugly watercolor phenomena called a “cauliflower”. Wring out the brush and then make short sweeping motions along the edge, almost like you were cleaning the floor with a broom. If there is a build-up of water at the edge, your dryer brush should pick the water back up along with some excess pigment.

Some ways to correct mistakes in a wash. Lift the unwanted color. It would be nice if we didn’t, but we all make mistakes. When adding a wash, should you try to correct it? Since white paint is not used with traditional transparent watercolor, if you need to return the paper to white, you can’t paint over it like you might with acrylics. I use non-staining colors so it is fairly easy to lift unwanted pigment in a small area. I wet the color to be lifted with a stiff brush, let the water stand for a bit, agitate the pigment with the brush or a dental cleaning brush and then blot it with a bit of paper towel. Do not use facial tissue because it might contain cream or oil. Glaze a new color over a previous color. If the area of wash is larger, you can paint a second wash over the first. This is called glazing and you must wait until the first wash is totally dry before adding the second. The glaze can be used to change the hue or to darken the area. For example, a thin blue glaze will turn a yellow area green, or a thin green glaze can dull an overly bright red area. A burnt sienna or violet glaze can darken a blue wash. It is easy to experiment on a scrap of paper to see the result before painting. The sketch at right shows how a burnt sienna glaze was used to dull a blue foreground. What ruins a lot of paintings? Impatience ruins too many paintings. Wait until the ink and paint are dry before you try to make corrections. I wish I could always follow my own advice. Lifting colors by adding water, blotting, scraping, overpainting, and glazing are all work that is best done when the paper is completly dry. © Copyright 2008, www.PenInkWatercolorSketching.com

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gPen, Ink, and Watercolor Wash Sketching

Try Colored Ink Washes Use only inks made for fountain pens and beware of calligraphy inks. They will clog regular fountain pens. Mixing waterproof pigmented inks with water-soluble dye-based inks has been my consuming experiment of late. Waterproof black ink mixed with water-soluble brown ink makes a very dark brown combination ideal for sketching. And when the lines have dried and are washed over with a water-filled brush, the waterproof part of the line remains crisply in place while the water-soluble component washes out into a gradient. The whole process is very interesting. So too are some of the witches’ brew mixes of inks I’ve made that don’t get along well together and curdle.

Mix Water-Resistant or Waterproof Black Ink with Water-Soluble Colored Inks Mixing inks has its critics. Ink mixes are experimental and there is some disagreement as to whether it is wise to mix inks. Some manufacturers say that mixing their own inks is okay while others warn against it. I mix the inks in very small quantities in those little plastic storage cups sold by the dozen in craft stores. Before filling a pen, I let the mix sit for a week to see if the two inks react negatively and produce sediment. I also remove a drop or two of the ink and let it dry on a plastic lid. I then add clear water to see if the dried ink will still be soluble in the water and if the ink will wash away if rinsed with water. This gives me an idea of how the ink will behave when it is inside the pen and whether or not it can be flushed out of the pen when I want to change the color.

Mix water-resistant Pelikan Fount India and water-soluble Pelikan 4001 Brown When I mixed the waterproof Platinum Carbon Black with various colors of water-soluble inks, I was pleased, but not too surprised that the heavily pigmented, waterproof Carbon Black ink lines survived the colored washes and remained crisp. After noting that the pigmented Pelikan Fount India was water-resistant as described on page 14, I mixed five parts of Pelikan 4001 brown to one part Pelikan Fount India and got a rich deep brown ink with iron oxide reddish brown undertones similar to some of the shades in old masters’ sketches. With this mix I could do a brown line drawing and then use a brush with water to pull oxide tint washes from the lines. The Pelikan Fount India does not make any claims to being waterproof, so I was surprised and pleased that it’s crisp lines did a fairly good job of surviving the water wash. And since the mix stayed free of sediment, it could be easily flushed from the pen.

Mix waterproof Platinum Carbon Black and water-soluble Diamine Sepia. I have not read about anyone else mixing waterproof Platinum Carbon Black Ink (reviewed on page 11) with other inks, so I can only relate my own experience. I have done it rather a lot and like the effects I can get. Diamine Sepia is a water-soluble dye-based ink. I mix seven parts of the Sepia with one part of the Carbon Black. When I sketch with this mix the lines are a very dark brown. Either while the ink is still wet or after the ink mix is dry, I can use a water brush to pull soft sepia washes out of the dark brown ink lines. The effect is dramatic because the Platinum Carbon Black stays firmly in place as a hard, dark brown line while the water-soluble sepia makes beautiful shaded washes just by the application of a little clear water, as in the sketch on page 25. © Copyright 2008, www.PenInkWatercolorSketching.com

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gPen, Ink, and Watercolor Wash Sketching

Try Colored Ink Washes The following mixes all use a waterproof ink for a crisp line and water-soluble inks for a tinted brown wash. I use plastic pipettes from eBay (see links on page 62) to measure the mix into small craft cups because adding a little bit of a color can make a big difference. The mixes are basically brown ink with a few drops of black ink for the waterproof lines. Water-soluble Diamine Sepia and Sheaffer Skrip Brown for the wash are mixed with Platinum Carbon Black for the line.

Sheaffer Skrip Brown with a little Waterman Green ink to dull the red is mixed with Platinum Carbon Black for the waterproof lines.

Noodler’s Eternal Brown and Noodler’s Bulletproof Black blend with Sheaffer Skrip Brown for the water-soluble wash.

This two color mix produces a reddish tint Pelikan 4001 Brown wash combined with a crisp Pen & Ink No-Shellac Black India ink line.

In an effort to get the ultimate brown, I mixed Platinum Carbon Black with three Sheaffer inks, Skrip Brown, Skrip Yellow, and Skrip Blue. As shown at right, the first mix had a little too much yellow, so I added a bit more brown and blue. I like working with this group of four inks. The Platinum Carbon provides the dark waterproof line while mixing the Sheaffer reddish brown, yellow, and blue is like having the three primary colors that will theoretically make any color. The inks did not curdle and the results were very satisfactory. I try not to mix too many colors, but as you can see, one of my favorite mixes has four colors. © Copyright 2008, www.PenInkWatercolorSketching.com

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gPen, Ink, and Watercolor Wash Sketching

Try Colored Ink Washes Some pens are a better choice for filling with mixes than others. Choose the fountain pen carefully. While you might not risk a mixture of inks in an expensive vintage pen, you might have a lesser pen in which you could try the ink as an experiment. The risk can be low if you use the pen daily, if you keep it full so the ink does not dry, and if you flush it out every few weeks with clear water. Eyedropper (ED) pens can be especially forgiving because they are easy to clean. The barrel of the ED holding the ink is easy to unscrew, empty, and scrub with a slender brush. An old ear syringe can squeeze water into the base of the feed. The water is thus forced through the ink channel of the feed and out through the nib, taking old ink with it. The syringe can also be used in reverse to force water from the breather hole in the nib back through the feed. This flushing can be repeated until the water runs clear. The sketch above was done with a mix of waterproof Noodler’s Golden Brown, classified as a near waterproof ink, and water-soluble Waterman Havana. Clear water pulled the wash from the reddish brown colored Havana ink.

Use Water-Soluble Fountain Pen Inks Alone Don’t worry about waterproof inks, just use water-soluble inks alone. If you want simply to sketch with ink and add a clear water wash to shade or tint the objects in your sketch, you do not need a waterproof ink. Any of the strong colored blacks or browns in water-soluble fountain pen inks will provide a line that can be softened with water and the tint then spread onto adjacent white areas to produce a monochrome tinted sketch. Sometimes I even use the filler lever of the pen to put a drop of ink onto my palette where it can be mixed with water to produce a tint. This technique gives fast, spontaneous results, and regular water-soluble inks made by many of the companies who produce fountain pens are widely available. For more variety, adding tinted watercolor washes of various hues produces soft, multicolor images. I like working with Waterman inks in this way. They are highly recommended by those knowledgeable of fountain pens and come in eight colors. I especially like the Waterman black, which produces a wash with a blue cast reminiscent of that widely used watercolor hue, Payne’s gray. © Copyright 2008, www.PenInkWatercolorSketching.com

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gPen, Ink, and Watercolor Wash Sketching

Try Colored Ink Washes The water-soluble fountain pen inks that I use Pelikan 4001 Black and Brown, Diamine Sepia, Sheaffer Skrip Brown, Waterman Havana and Black Sketching with brown inks is a nice change from always using black, and artists often favor a specific shade of brown. Walnut is a popular color available in drawing ink but difficult to find in fountain pen inks. So a search for the perfect brown ink can become a quest. I’ve settled on four from the brands shown in the photos below. When adding a water wash to a sketch done with these inks, one must be careful not to let the water touch the darker lines because they are not waterproof. Pelikan 4001 inks are highly regarded by ink enthusiasts. The Black 4001 is water-soluble and you can see the burnt sienna undertone in the Brilliant Brown sample below. The Sepia that I combine with Carbon Black for sketching on beige papers is imported from the U.K. and labeled Diamine Fine Old English Ink. It dates from 1864 and enjoys a reputation for fine quality. This Sepia has a slight yellow cast and when mixed with Carbon Black reminds me of a nice pecan. My newest brown, Sheaffer Skrip Brown, is a middle chocolate brown with a red cast. The undertone may be a bit too red, but Sheaffer Yellow can be added and is in stock at my local stationery store. Waterman’s Havana Brown is a deep maroon brown that shades nicely when writing so that it can appear to be almost black as it builds up on slow strokes, and the Waterman black shows the Payne’s gray undertone described earlier. These fountain pen inks can be found at office supply and stationery stores or ordered online. Forums discussing these inks are found at fountainpennetwork.com. See links on page 62.

Pelikan 4001 Ink

Diamine Ink

Sheaffer Skrip Ink

© Copyright 2008, www.PenInkWatercolorSketching.com

Waterman Ink

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gPen, Ink, and Watercolor Wash Sketching

Choosing a Subject to Sketch When deciding what to sketch, you can choose from the scenes and objects you see around you, from your imagination, from your memories, from a photograph, from a still life, or from live models. The world is one big source of drawings filled with landscapes, objects, and people. When choosing where to sketch, you also have many choices: In your studio, in front of your computer screen, in a class, in the field, or from your car window. In our art group, we had a friendly but heated discussion as to whether standing inside one’s open garage door on a rainy day qualifies as plein air or studio sketching.

Sketch the little things around you. An easy way to get started is to get your paper and pen, sit where you are comfortable, and look around you. Make a rough preliminary sketch of anything you see that catches your eye. When I am at this stage, I usually end up drawing my own coffee cup, my foot in whatever variety of shoe it has on, a doorway looking into another room, or a window that has something interesting on the inside leading in an inquisitive way to something interesting outside. Begin to draw, and if your pen has a fixed width nib, try to make expressive strokes that squiggle, circle or move in long rhythmic curves. If your pen has Sketch of my drawing table a flexible nib or you are using an ink brush, working in such an expressive with computer nearby. way comes naturally. Change the pressure on the nib or brush tip to make thick to thin lines as you make your quick, rough preliminary sketch. The goal is not to make great art. The goal is to draw something in an expressive way with good movement of your hands and arms. You may like to have music for this action because it is a bit like a morning exercise routine or a dance class.

Gather a collection of items for still life sketches. Keep a tray of small interesting objects near your drawing table. I gather things like small boxes, vases, candlesticks, shells, twigs, dried flowers, pinecones, and scarves, and keep them nearby just so I will have something ready to sketch if I have a pen in my hand and a free moment. When you get the urge to sketch, it’s good to have something more interesting than your pencil holder cup or paint box to practice on.

Start with a shape and fill it. Here’s a little trick for a time when you have a pen in your hand but cannot see or think of anything you want to sketch. Draw the outline for an irregular shape on your paper. Begin to fill it in with light and dark areas and lines until a picture presents itself. Hatch it, finish it, and then do another until you have a page full of minisketches. Still life sketch from items on my tray. © Copyright 2008, www.PenInkWatercolorSketching.com

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gPen, Ink, and Watercolor Wash Sketching

Choosing a Subject to Sketch Sketch the corner of a garden. What’s in the corner of your garden? This sketch was done after a hard rain. The azaleas were past their prime and I sat inside on a small stool to do the sketch in about half an hour. The sketch was done using Diamine Sepia mixed with Platinum Carbon Black ink. I copied the sketch by running Strathmore Series 400 Bristol through a copier. I kept one copy as a black and white sketch and tinted the other with watercolors.

Black line sketches can be copied with a high resolution copier or with a scanner and a laser printer. They can then be tinted by hand as shown at right and framed as prints or copied onto sheets that are folded to be used as cards. Be sure cards use a paperstock that will accept ink for handwritten messages.

Find a variety of outdoor sketching spots. Everyone has a preference or perhaps a limitation. Plein air sketching can involve a lot of activity just to find a suitable place to draw. Dragging equipment through weeds and brambles, sitting on uneven stones, fighting insects, wind, and too much sunshine can make you want to remain in the comfort of the studio. However, outdoor sketching can also include parks with benches, sidewalk cafes, street fairs, or parking lots. Try sketching on a bus or airplane, in museums, and in a number of public areas with scenic views.

Indoors or outside, be aware of your light source. Being aware of the direction of the light source is necessary when painting outdoors because the source of the light is the sun, which shines from a single point. Inside, the light is different. Depending on the number of lights turned on, it can come from many directions. A good teacher I had once said, “You decide on the source of your light and you then adjust the shadows in your sketch.” © Copyright 2008, www.PenInkWatercolorSketching.com

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gPen, Ink, and Watercolor Wash Sketching

Sketching Outdoors Basic Sketching Materials This tray holds all the materials on my drawing table. When a 9.5” x 13” plastic clipboard storage box is opened it makes an ideal tray to hold materials on a drawing table. The picture at right shows how a terry towel is first spread out and how items are arranged on the tray, top to bottom, with clips, paper towels, pens and pencil, waterbrushes, sponge, water cups, paintbox, and brushes. Note: The rivets that held the clip to the outside of the box were easily removed with an electric drill, so that the tray lies flat. To pack up for class or a painting group where tables are provided, the clipboard storage box folds in half with all the small materials held together inside. As shown in the second picture at right, the paintbox, terry towel, and water cups are packed together . The last picture shows how all materials plus gatorboard backing board are packed in a canvas bag ready to go to a class or painting group.

Materials on a tray.

Packing List for Three Portable Painting Kits Basic materials list for my studio or outdoor sketching Pens with ink Paper to draw or paint on (2 or 3 sheets) Stiff board or cardboard backing to hold paper Fastening device to hold paper to board (small bulldog or binder clips) Paper for testing colors or pen strokes Paint in paintbox or palette Plastic water bottle and cup holders for water Sponge Cloths (2) – 1 for lap, 1 for under paintbox Pen wipe – chamois or lint free cloth Paper towels – 2 cut in fourths, a smaller size is useful to lift colors Brushes for several hours of sketching – ¼”, ½”, ¾” flats, #6 and #12 rounds, #8 sable, 7/8” Ron Ranson Hake. (Brushes for brief outdoor sketching – ¾” flat and #12 round.) Proxabrush® Water brush Pencil 4H – I almost never use it now, but I always carry it with me Kneaded eraser – does not leave debris that could get caught in a pen point Tray system for holding materials flat and keeping tools together Tape, putty stickum, cotton swabs, toothpicks to stir paint Camera, for outdoors, if you want to start a sketch and finish it later

Tray folds in half

Everything packs in one bag. © Copyright 2008, www.PenInkWatercolorSketching.com

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Sketching Outdoors Materials for brief outdoor sketching My basic materials list is the same, but items are of a smaller size as shown here. Just like the clipboard tray, the zipped 8” x 10” notebook unfolds to make a tray with a water cup clipped to the zipper. Small items are together in a clear plastic bag and the zipper edge keeps items from falling off the tray.This all packs into a cheap old binocular bag. Packed to go.

Additional items for several hours of outdoor sketching My basic materials list is the same, but everything is packed into an 8.25” x 10.5” ArtBin Quick View case that also unfolds to make a tray. The stiff canvas bag works as a table to hold the tray and the small stool folds to pack. Items like sunglasses, a big hat or visor, scarf, hood, umbrella for shade, jacket, kleenex, snack, beverage, insecticide, cell phone, wallet, car keys and driver’s license, and identification tags on materials can also come in handy.

Packed to go.

At right: The mini kit has a camera, a palette made from a pillbox, pens, and water brushes. It all packs into a 7” x 8” bag with room to spare.

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Sketching Outdoors

Hints and Special Requirements for Outdoor Painting When searching for a scene to paint, don’t look for an ideal vista. Take what you find and don’t be afraid to move things around to get a good composition. If you go from here to there searching for the perfect view, you will waste a lot of time that you could use for sketching. Be aware of shadows and reflections and always remember to turn around and look behind you. Let your eye wander and settle on something that interests you. Draw that. Then add to it.

Brushes Take a big brush, a #8 or #12, and a 3/4” flat. Things dry fast when you’re working outside, so you need the big sizes to get a wash down quickly on even a small sketch. If a handle is too long for my kit, I just cut it off. I did it once on a Series 7, size 10 Sable and felt a bit guilty for degrading such a prized item. But then I decided it was my tool and it was okay because it made it more useful for me.

Gum Arabic for paints that crumble When tube watercolors are put into pans for outdoor painting, some colors will break apart and crumble as they dry. This makes a problem when carrying the paints around because the dry bits shake off and fall into the other colors. My viridian and sepia crumbled until I added a few drops of gum arabic to the paint and stirred it well.

Special care for vintage pens Vintage pens made of black hard rubber can oxidize and turn an unattractive greenish brown if exposed very long to bright sunlight. I know; I ruined two by leaving them exposed in my sketchbox for about half an hour on a hot day. It doesn’t matter all that much though, because the gold points are still nice to draw with.

Backup for fountain pens I always carry two fountain pens and a disposable pen so I have a backup if one of my pens runs out of ink.

Ink dries quickly Ink dries very quickly outside due to the moving air and sometimes sunlight, so be prepared to adjust your painting speeds.

The test area you always have with you When sketching outdoors, if you have no surface to test your pen or brush point, remember that your own thumbnail is a convenient, clean, flat, portable palette on which to express a drop of ink from your pen, add a drop of water from your brush, and blend the two together for a small tonal wash.

Carrying water for washes When you are looking for ways to carry water in small quantities, be sure to check trial-size bottles of shampoo. They are designed to carry liquid, so are less likely to leak. The travel size packs easily because it is small. I also use empty shampoo tubes. Squeezing all the air out and holding them underwater while they suck in the water can fill them. The bottom cut from a large plastic toothpaste or hand cream tube will make a good cup to hold the water because it folds flat to fit into your kit. Cut the tube off to about 3” long and clip it to the side of a painting kit or to a paint box that you hold in your hand. See the water cup in the photo at the top of page 45. © Copyright 2008, www.PenInkWatercolorSketching.com

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Sketching Outdoors

Make Your Own Palettes for Small Sketch Kits Make your own holders for small half pan paint palettes. The picture below shows two holders that I’ve made so that paint pans can fit into various paint boxes. One holds twelve full pans and is cut from a sheet of clear plastic. I first cut a piece to fit the bottom of my paint box. I then cut and fitted dividers to separate the pans. The dividers have one long piece down the center with notches spaced to accept five short perpendicular pieces that separate the sides of the pans. In the photo, three pans have been pulled aside to show little white putty balls of the kind that stick posters on walls. The putty holds the pans firmly in place so the whole unit can be lifted when the paintbox needs to be washed. The second holder on the left is for six half pans and is cut from a sheet of pliable, white craft foam that is 6mm thick and sold in craft stores. The foam is quite easy to cut with a hobby knife and provides space to write the names of the colors.

My mini pillbox travel sketching and painting kit This little sketchbox, shown at right, is made from a complimentary pillbox given out by my local drugstore. It holds four half pans of watercolor in red, yellow, blue, and burnt sienna. A full size paint pan for water is attached to the side with putty. When used with a water brush, this palette works surprisingly well to provide everything I need for a quick sketch. Here is a picture of the palette in use. It was taken by my seatmate on an airplane where I had been sketching the only thing I could see, his hands holding one of those handheld games.

Sketching in an airplane Contrary to what we sometimes hear, I have had no problem taking fountain pens on airplanes. I fill them, wrap two or three in an old terry washcloth, and put them in a plastic bag placed so their points will stay upright. Usually they don’t leak, but if they do, it is only a drop or two that is absorbed by the terry cloth. During the flight, I sketch with a pre-filled disposable pen and the mini sketchbox described above.

Carrying Bag or Case For mobile sketching, some artists like a sketch box; others like a small backpack or bag. When I take the items in my basic materials list along with the additional items for mobile sketching, I put everything in a canvas bag. For brief sketching of just an hour or so, I take smaller items, and to work unobtrusively, I like a zip case that will look like I am taking notes in a book. The zip case serves as a tray on my lap and has sides so that I don’t have to worry about things falling off. My current favorite for this kit is shown on page 45 and is made from one of those organizer binders that are sold in office supply stores. Any zip binder will do, but these are easy to find, often in thrift shops. The rings to hold paper are removed from the center with an electric drill. © Copyright 2008, www.PenInkWatercolorSketching.com

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Working in the Studio Reference images can be helpful for studio work. These may be sketches you have made on location, printed materials, or photographs.

Using Images for Reference Sketching from photographs If you are working from photographs used as a reference, ink line sketches are a good way to make sure you are reinterpreting the photographic image and producing your own, new, creative rendering of a subject. Many techniques commonly used in paintings were developed before the advent of photography, when painters were unique in their ability to make realistic pictures of what could be seen in nature. This kind of realistic picture is now beautifully produced by the camera. It is what the camera sees and records very accurately. When the artist sketches with a pen and ink line and then adds tonal washes, the artist is forced to add his own interpretation to the image he is seeing. So, to sketch from a photo reference, look at it as you would look at a scene in nature and use it as a point of departure on which to base your own new image. However you make a picture, you translate the three dimensional to the two dimensional. Something the camera performs for you. But it might not be done in the same way that you would do it if you were to make the translation as you sketched in the field. Did you ever notice that photographs always seem to flatten the landscape? Perhaps it is because photographers rarely hold their cameras more than six feet off the ground. You can change the vantage point. Just pretend you are a bird looking down, draw a new horizon, and adjust the perspective. Move the trees around and simplify the buildings. Change the colors. Add or eliminate figures, and even change the direction of the light. Or change the season of the year by changing the color of the grasses and the leaves on the trees. On our Web site, www.PenInkWatercolorSketching.com, we have posted a large number of copyright-free photographs for you to use as references for your sketches. See page 62 for links. The photographs are downloadable and you are granted copyright permission to use these photos as reference for any of your paintings or drawings for publication or sale. The images can be rendered in any way you wish, but they cannot be published as photographs. We hope you will use these photographs as a departure point and a reference rather than to laboriously copy them. It is much more fun to use them as a reference for a creative sketch.

My drawing table is flat, so I use a wooden block to angle the clipboard backing board that holds my drawing paper.

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Working in the Studio How to create an original sketch from a reference photo. A camera produces a photo-realistic picture of a scene. An artist can use the realistic photograph as a point of departure to recreate the scene in the artist’s own medium as a drawing, a painting or, in our case, as an ink and wash sketch. In this exercise, the photo below will be used as a reference for the sketch. Just beginning a drawing is not half the battle; with blank white paper in front of you, it is all of the battle, so use a pencil to draw a large oval in the middle of your paper. This will mimic your field of vision, which is an oval. Plus it is psychologically powerful to draw the oval because it has gotten you started. The oval will nicely frame your sketch and you are no longer looking at that expansive blank piece of white paper. Now, stare at the reference photo and immerse yourself in the scene as if the images were actually in front of you. Try this with the larger copy of this reference photo on page 50. First pick out one interesting thing from the photo reference and place it as the focal point somewhere near the center of your oval. To help you find an interesting thing for a focal point, make an oval with the thumbs and center fingers of your hands and use it as a viewfinder to frame the area around the focal point you have chosen. Here are three samples that show how this method can be used to create three different sketches from the reference photo shown at the top of the right hand column on this page and repeated in a larger size on the next page.

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Working in the Studio

How to Work from a Reference Photo Look at the larger reference photo below and choose a focal point for your oval area. To block in the composition, put a few lines in the penciled oval on your paper. Draw a short straight line for the horizon, a quick shape for the focal point, several vertical lines for the perspective of trees or posts, and one or two diagonal lines to direct the eye toward the focal point. These lines should be very light in case you want to change them later. Sketch in ink as you choose other elements from the photo to complete the composition and if a tree or rock isn’t exactly where you want it, just move things around to make your picture look good. The first lines in your sketch might look something like the lines in the oval at right. They can be in pencil or ink. If in ink, you can use the dot to dot system described on page 22. In a photo, the entire area that the camera sees is frequently far more than you would be aware of if you were painting on the spot from which the photo was taken. So choosing a small area from within the photo will enable you to more closely approximate sketching from nature and will also produce a new, original picture that is totally your own creation.

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Working in the Studio Sketch from images on a computer screen. Instead of working from printed photos, working directly from the photographs on a computer screen will more closely match working from nature. You can open more than one copy of the photo so that you can crop two pictures with different compositions and then create a new arrangement using elements from each. Remember, when you are painting outdoors, you just naturally look around and choose bits of scenery from here and there to put into your picture. The computer screen is also luminous and the light directs your visual focus in a way that is similar to being outside. The computer program for viewing photos usually has an enlarging glass you can use to zoom in on the photo and capture details. This is especially useful to capture the stance and angle of the bodies of any people in the photo. ! ! ! ! ! ! ! !

If you were outside, you would not try to paint everything in front of you. Look at the scene on your computer screen and pretend you are sitting there. Look around to see what is interesting. Sketch the interesting thing near the center of your paper. Move bits and pieces of images in from other areas if you want. Pick and choose to add detail as necessary. Use the lines that are mistakes and incorporate them into your design. Look at your reference to see where the strongest darks and lights should be in your image.

Sketch from live images on the Net. I was recently illustrating a children’s book about polar bears. I haven’t spent much time around polar bears, so I went online to look at photographs and make practice sketches. There were lots of photos from the national parks, from encyclopedias, etc., but the very best reference resource was the Polar Cam, a live camera in place at the San Diego Zoo, www.SanDiegoZoo.org. I sat at my computer in central California with my pen poised and sketchbook in hand as I watched the polar bear amble into the camcorder’s range. I could sketch quickly as the bear wandered into view, turned, sniffed the air, and lay down. It was a wonderful way to have my personal live polar bear model and get a variety of poses that I could use later when doing the final drawings.

Tips for Studio Materials Small bottles for mixing inks These are hard to find. Half-size jars that spices are sold in work pretty well if a circle of craft foam is fitted into the lid as a seal. Sample jars that restaurants sometimes use to serve jam or mustard are a nice size as are the palette storage cups sold in sets at craft stores.

Hog bristle brushes Keep a few hog bristle brushes around for lifting paints to create highlights and scrubbing paint from the corners of pans. Since the bristles are a natural material, they will absorb water more readily than the synthetic bristles of other inexpensive, utilitarian brushes.

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Ways to Improve Your Drawing Skills Drawing skills depend upon careful observation. You need to examine the shape and form of the things you see, look at the scale of one object in relationship to other objects around it, and observe the colors of single objects and the range of colors in an entire scene. Seeing what is around you, plus developing the manual skills for letting your hands express what is coming in through your eyes, will give you the technique to make drawings that please you. When you are comfortable with shapes, focal point, perspective, and composition, you can then interpret what you observe and decide whether you want to do drawings that are carefully rendered or expressive sketches in which the subject is loosely hinted at, leaving it to your viewer to fill in details.

Tools to Help You Draw At first, use a viewfinder. When sketching from nature, use a rectangular viewfinder in rough proportion to the shape of your paper. Hold it up and look in various directions until you can see a group of objects that might go together to make a suitable picture. Hold it close to your eye for a wide view of the landscape. Then hold it at arm’s length from your eye to find a small, interesting composition within that big landscape. It is interesting to do this indoors as well. Sometimes the corner of a room will make a terrific picture. More often than not, I forget my view finder, so I just hold my two hands in front of my eyes. By holding my thumbs straight out and bending my middle fingers, I can make a very nice rectangle that will frame a view easily and quickly. Try it; it’s easy, fast, and adjustable in size when you move your hands together.

Learn the Basics of Perspective Drawing At a minimum you need to know the principles of one-point and two-point perspective and how they are used with a horizon line (HL) and vanishing points (VP). Get a beginning book on perspective drawing and practice the exercises. Then use your eyes when you are in the field to see how the perspective is visible in nature, how objects closer to you are larger, and how they become smaller if they are further away.

HL

VP VP

One Point Perspective © Copyright 2008, www.PenInkWatercolorSketching.com

HL

VP

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Ways to Improving Drawing Skills

Learn the Proportions of the Human Body Leonardo da Vinci’s drawing of the human figure, based on the proportions of Vitruvius, is eight heads tall. Today, the body is said to be seven to seven and a half heads tall. I prefer Leonardo’s proportions because the body is divided into four equal segments that are easy to remember: 1-Top of head to nipples. 2-Nipples to crotch. 3-Crotch to knee. 4-Knee to foot. Segment number 1 is divided in half. A-Top of head to chin equals Bchin to nipples. The face is then divided into thirds: C-Forehead to eyebrows. D-Eyebrows to bottom of nose. EBottom of nose to chin. All of these measurements are easy to remember.

1

C A

D E

2 B

Details from the Vitruvian Man Drawing by Leonardo da Vinci, 1452-1519

3

4

Analyze famous paintings. Get some practice paper and draw a page full of rectangular outlines using your viewfinder as a template. From your library, get an art book full of famous drawings and paintings that you like. Systematically, analyze the composition of a painting as you make a thumbnail sketch in one of the little rectangular outlines you have drawn. Pay particular attention to the placement of objects, the angles of the lines, the dark and light tonal values, and the soft to hard areas of the original. When you finish, you will have a whole page full of attractive little sketches and will have learned a lot by the careful examination of the successful paintings in the art book. It is quite legitimate to learn by copying. Since its establishment in 1793, the Louvre has been, according to one commentator, “the great Parisian school of art.” Before the advent of mechanical means of reproduction, registered copyists could make a living in the Louvre, where they worked alongside apprentice painters who also could augment their living while learning their trade. As recently as 1989, there were 84 registered copyists in the Louvre. Half of them were professional copyists, 25% were art students, and 25% were amateurs.

When to Sketch Set aside some time to draw every day. Odd moments such as relaxing time after lunch will be helpful, even if your sketch is hurried and not particularly good. Daily sketching is good for you and it is good for your pens because it keeps both the ink and your creative energies flowing. © Copyright 2008, www.PenInkWatercolorSketching.com

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Join a Sketching Group or Class I firmly believe that sketching with a group is very rewarding. It probably explains the popularity of the Sketch Crawls, where people gather at a pre-set location, go out for a day of sketching, and then meet to talk about their experiences and share their sketches.

Flash Lab 101 with Music, My First Drawing Class In 1946, I registered as a freshman in the Art Department of Ohio State University. World War II had just ended, veterans were streaming home to use the GI Bill to begin college, and campuses everywhere were gearing up to handle the large new influx of students. Quonset huts with coal burning potbelly stoves were erected all over campus and turned into temporary classrooms. During the war, a theater in the Art Department’s Hayes Hall had been converted into a special room for training combat fliers to rapidly distinguish between friendly and enemy aircraft. The room had been darkened with heavy curtains, equipped with a special projector called a tachistoscope, a sound system, and a three-tiered floor so that large tables could be arranged for full observation of the screen in front. Along with the many changes on campus that historic fall, this theater was pressed into service as a new learning facility where every incoming freshman in the Art Department was required to take a new course called Flash Lab 101. About twenty of us at a time went into the lab and stood behind tables with big double sheets of newsprint stacked in front of us. We were given a square of charcoal as big as our hand. The lights were turned out, classical music was turned on, and images of black airplanes in profile were flashed on the screen in front of us. Flashed on, flashed off, flashed on and then off, repeatedly. We were told to swing our arms and hands around the paper in front of us, in the dark. The idea was that we were to become integral with the sheet of paper. We were to keep our hands moving over the surface, Move from the center out to the corners, around the edges and then back to the center. This constant movement in the dark let us feel the shape and size of the paper so that when we made a mark with the charcoal, we would know and feel where that mark was in relationship to the whole. Only then were we to use the charcoal to draw the profiles of the flashing airplanes. When we filled one sheet of newsprint, we were to crumple it, throw it behind us into the dark, and do another. The class was held three times per week. The first few sessions we drew airplanes only, but as the semester progressed, so did the intricacies of the pictures that were flashed on the screen. I can’t remember a lot about the pictures, only that they were all black and white drawings and that toward the end, the projected pictures were allowed to stay on the screen a little longer. We would work with the hunk of charcoal, in the dark, looking at the screen, feeling the edges of the paper and letting the image from the screen flow into our eyes and out through our hands without ever seeing what we were putting on the paper. The most surprising thing was that by the last of the sessions, when the lights were turned on, some of our drawings began to look amazingly like the images that had been projected. We had a great time in that dark room, with this mix of 18 year-old young men and women and more mature returning veterans. We laughed a lot about how the Flash Lab was silly. But I think it was very helpful in teaching me to relate to the size and dimension of the paper I am working on and to let an image come in through my eyes and out through my hands. At the time, we didn’t know whether our professors thought the class would benefit their art students or whether Flash Lab 101 was just a way to utilize an existing ready-to-go classroom. I doubt that the class still exists, but I’ve always been glad I was part of the messy, dusty charcoal, the crumpled newsprint on the floor, and all the giggling students in the dark. © Copyright 2008, www.PenInkWatercolorSketching.com

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Join a Sketching Group or Class Only recently have I learned that the Flash Lab was based on research in kinaesthetic drawing and psychological optics by Hoyt L. Sherman, a professor of Fine Arts at OSU, where it was referred to as “drawing by seeing”. In the online chronology of Roy Lichtenstein, it says he attended painting classes taught by Sherman and began to incorporate into his own work the theories developed by Sherman in his "flash lab". I can see a similarity between our experiences in Flash Lab and how Rembrandt van Rijn was said to have learned to draw with speedy observation by peering through the revolving blades of his father’s windmill.

Sketching with Others Join a life drawing, painting, or sketching group. Go to a life drawing group session. Drawing quickly will loosen your style as you work to record only the major aspects of the subject you are sketching. The sessions will improve your observation. Or take a class in painting. Most mixed media groups will welcome artists doing pen and ink wash. You’ll get great tips from the teacher or leader, and you will learn a lot from being with other working artists. As a bonus you get to see everybody else’s sets of drawing and painting materials, which will let you learn about new things and see new ways to use the materials you have. Working on sketches with a life drawing group that meets once a week will improve your ability to observe the human body in different poses and will make it easier to include quick sketches of figures in your landscape drawings.

Even if you already know everything, take a class. You will learn something useful from the teacher and from every other student in the group. Plus, there is the fun of working with a group of people who share the thing you are interested in. Art can be a lonely pursuit.

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Join a Sketching Group or Class Join a watercolor or still life drawing class. Working with a group will help you evaluate your own work by observing the reaction of others who share your interests. You have access to suggestions, critiques, and comments. One of the best tips I have gotten was from the leader of a life drawing class who said, “Draw with conviction and confidence.” It is a simple statement, but it can make a big difference in your drawings.

Sketches at painting groups from still life arrangements.

Join Sketch Crawls and online art forums. A Google search returns 755,000 responses for sketch blogs, so you have lots of company in your sketching hobby. The Internet also provides new opportunities to see sketches from other artists. Galleries have always exhibited paintings and sculpture, but because sketchbooks are rarely displayed, it has been difficult to see a wide variety of sketches. Now you can follow the link to SketchCrawl.com to see multiple sketches and links to local SketchCrawl groups. See page 62 for link.

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Let’s Evaluate Your Sketch Not all black and white ink drawings are sketches. Some are highly detailed photo-realistic renderings that can take months to complete. These pen and ink drawings can be beautifully executed with marvelous technique, but they do not fit the definition of a sketch: “…a rough drawing representing the chief features of an object or scene.”

Criteria for Evaluation Since watercolorists generally frown upon using black paint, it takes some real effort to get intense darks in watercolor only sketches. Ink is a great medium because it is very dark, which lets you easily use enough black to give your white paper lots of sparkling contrast. Sparkly black ink sketches with soft diffuse watercolor washes combine the best features of both media. So do be sure that you have exploited these two aspects of our wonderful ink and watercolor combination. We usually think of pictures as something to be hung on a wall, but sketches are intended to be held in the hand for viewing. It is also informative to step back from them and take a detached and impartial view when you are trying to judge their merits. As the one who did the piece, you need to see it in relationship to the work you have done before and the work you hope to do in the future.

Stand back and look at your picture. Some artistic considerations to use for evaluation are composition, drawing skills, color, originality, point of interest, perspective, tonal values, creativity, and mood. I put a finished sketch on an easel for a day or two so that I can view it from across the room, casually, as I walk by. I stand back, squint my eyes and evaluate just the arrangement of lights and darks to judge the composition. I try to look at it critically and decide what might work better in my next sketch. Composition and layout Is your eye drawn to your central point of interest? Is a line acting adversely as an arrow to direct your eye off to the edge and out of the picture? Tonal values and color contrasts Does your picture have a range of tonal values from bright white to mid tones, dark shades, and black? Is your main point of interest accented by high contrast of light and dark tones and by sharp, crisp edges? Are warm colors or complementary colors used to intensify the area of your focal point? Space, depth, and perspective Does the background stay in the back by using soft diffuse edges, cool colors, and low tonal contrast? Does the foreground come to the front by using warm colors, crisp edges, and contrasting tones? Are shapes and objects drawn in proportion to one another? Is the perspective in keeping with the vanishing points on the visible or non-visible or obscured horizon? Has the source of light been determined and do shadows fall in a consistent direction? Perhaps the most important criteria is, Do you like it? Was it fun to draw?

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Let’s Evaluate Your Sketch

Develop Your Own Style Experiment and try various techniques until you find your own style. As you pursue it, follow what feels comfortable and natural to you. Try various pens, various inks, and various sizes. Wash the entire paper with tint before you draw the ink lines; sketch with colored ink or markers and add blacks with a brush; sketch on tinted paper and add white highlights with gel markers; draw with a reed pen on rough paper. So many new materials are available that you can experiment constantly, and just trying a new material will be exciting and productive. Form will follow function is an old rule of art. For sketchers, that can be especially liberating because there are no rules for sketching. The media can be as mixed as your imagination will permit. Your style can be a realistic rendering or limited to a few strokes and outlines that give suggestions of objects. Each sketcher will develop his or her own individuality or style. In the final assessment, the only person you need to please is yourself. In some ways, sketching is a performing art. When you become contemplative about a subject, the lines become faint and wiggly. When you feel positive, your arm is bolder, your hand moves faster, the pen nib is pressed more firmly against the paper and, if the nib is flexible, the line becomes wider, bolder, and darker. The drawing, just as music, expresses your feelings about the subject.

What to Do with Your Sketch Frame it or sell it. Sketches of local landmarks do well. Give it as a gift. Often the recipient will have a special relationship to the subject of the sketch. Post it in an online blog where the whole world can see it. Keep a personal journal. The reason for sketching is not necessarily limited to an artistic pursuit. It can be more of a record, part of a journal that includes what you are seeing, what you are doing, and what you value.

Why Do it? Because It is fun.

Above: Kite Day at Reeds Lake in East Grand Rapids, Michigan, was drawn with a mix of Platinum Carbon, Sheaffer Skrip Brown, and Waterman Green inks. © Copyright 2008, www.PenInkWatercolorSketching.com

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History of Sketching Since drawing is the basis for sketching, I believe it is helpful to look at good drawings from the past.

Classic Drawings Gallery and Timeline Historically, drawings were often an end in themselves: those in prehistoric caves, those in medieval illuminated manuscripts, or later, those drawn in Renaissance times as scientific studies or as preliminary sketches for an artist’s larger works. From the time of illuminated manuscripts, drawings were held in the hand, as books, just as our sketchbooks are held today. When printing appeared, drawings were reproduced so they could be duplicated and viewed as illustrations in printed books and leaflets. Printing techniques developed in three ways: woodcuts, engraving, and lithography. All used black ink on white or light colored paper with middle tones added by hatching of various kinds and, later, by color tints. The techniques artists use for black ink line drawings are closely tied to the evolution of printing. You can see samples in our brief history, Gallery of Classic Drawings, that is both posted on our Web site and provided as a complimentary PDF file with this electronic book. See link on page 62.

Pen and Ink Drawings As printing presses were refined, the need for black and white illustrations increased. At first the printing process used metal plate engravings, but with the development of photography, cameras could be used to copy black and white ink line drawings. The photo negative of the drawing was used to make a zinc printing plate and the zinc plate of the illustration was then combined with the metal type for printing text in newspapers, leaflets, and advertisements. Many of the pen and ink drawings familiar to us now were originally created for a copy camera. The lines had to be very precise, and the ink used for the drawing had to be a very dark black India ink for the reproduction process to turn out well. The use of pen and ink illustrations for black and white printing continued from the mid 19th century through much of the 20th before digital methods for reproducing printed artwork were developed. Computers have changed the printing world’s need for pen and ink drawings. Now black and white pen and ink is being rediscovered because of such new materials as the large variety of disposable pens plus new waterproof inks in both black and colors. Sketching has become a fast, easy, creative way to relax and enjoy making a drawing quickly.

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More About Vintage Pens Here are some tips for those who are interested in finding and using vintage pens with flexible nibs.

Flexible Nibs This kind of flexible nib can be found in vintage fountain pens from the 1920s and 30s when the nibs were usually made of 14k gold. In addition to fountain pen collectors, artists who like the quality of the thin to thick fluid lines that the pens can produce also eagerly seek vintage pens with flexible nibs. The nib shown was made by Wahl and labeled as flexible. In the 1920s and 30s, people wanted the flexible nibs because they suited the style of handwriting that was customary at the time. Stiff nibs labeled Manifold were also made because others needed a firm nib that could be pressed hard enough to make carbon copies. Ballpoint pens were introduced in the late1940s, and people became used to pressing harder on the stick-like firmer points. Many liked the convenience of ballpoints with their pre-filled ink and preferred the new pens for making duplicate copies. So with the widespread use of ballpoints, flexible nibs were no longer in demand and pretty much disappeared from the market. Some say that since customers were now used to pressing harder on a pen point, manufacturers did not want to risk having a lot of bent flexible gold nibs returned for repair.

Finding the right vintage pen It takes some study to find the right vintage pens to buy for sketching, and they can be expensive, but they are fun to draw with. Super flexible nibs are called “Wet Noodles,” and for sketching, a good flexible nib pen has many of the same qualities as a nice pointed brush while also retaining the tactile feel of the nib touching the paper. If you are interested in finding vintage pens, there is some information on our Web site along with links to FountainPenNetwork.com and other forums that post excellent articles and help. See page 62 for links. It is generally accepted that the most common pens with flexible nibs will be found among Waterman pens fitted with Ideal #2 nibs. There are many types of #2 nibs, but the ones that are flexible have a long slender profile, usually with a heart-shaped breather hole, and are marked as 14K. The most common Waterman pen with this nib is usually made of black hard rubber (BHR) and is inscribed with a 52 on the end of the barrel. The number 5 of the inscription stands for lever-filler and the 2 for the size of the nib. Pens with 14K nibs in larger sizes can also be found, but they are more expensive. In addition to some lever-filled pens marked 52, I also have several Waterman eyedropper pens that are from the earlier 1910s and are marked with 12 on the end of the barrel. Here, the number 1 stands for eyedropper (ED) and the 2 stands for the size of the nib. Eyedropper pens are a good choice for artists because they are a simple construction, can be easily cleaned, and hold lots of ink. There are vintage pens from Wahl and other brands to be found in online auctions, at pen shows, at garage sales if you are lucky, or from collectors of vintage pens.

The right inks for vintage pens In my better vintage pens I use dye-based water-based inks, waterproof Noodler’s inks or Pelikan Fount India Ink. In pens that are easy to clean or less valuable pens, I use Platinum Carbon ink, Pen & Ink No-shellac India, and mixes of carbon and dye based inks. I have had no problems, but do clean my pens often and do not let them sit unused for more than a few days. Nibs.com has an excellent article outlining steps for cleaning vintage pens. See page 62 for the link. I regularly rinse pens by filling them with water and emptying them until the water is clear and free of color. I flush hard rubber pens with water only or water with a drop or two of dishwashing liquid followed by clear water. © Copyright 2008, www.PenInkWatercolorSketching.com

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More about Vintage Pens Drawing with Ink Pens I feel like I have put hundreds of miles on pen points, beginning in the 1930s with a steel point in a holder that I could dip into the ink well in the upper right corner of my grade school desk. I can still remember the feel of the chamois wipe and the lined copy book we used for Penmanship. I began to draw with waterproof India Ink and was fond of crow quill pens in the ‘40s; Pelikan Graphos pens appeared in the ‘50s; Koh-i-noor Rapidograph and other technical pens were developed in the ‘60s. Since then there have appeared a wonderful selection of pre-filled disposable pens and the Rotring Art Pen. And finally, with the development of waterproof inks for fountain pens, I have rediscovered vintage fountain pens, with their wonderful flexible nibs. I love the feel of a pen in my hand with the nib pressing against the paper, the wet ink forming a smooth line as I move the point. And the way the pigment or dye disperses and flows when I add a wet wash over the dark inked lines pleases me. Some of my favorite vintage Waterman pens are shown below. The first two on the left are celluloid while the others are made of hard rubber. The last three on the right are filled with an eyedropper. The third pen from the right is the one that turned partially brown when I left it exposed to the sun in my sketchbox one day. The 14K nib still makes great lines so I really don’t mind about the color. The following page and our Web site have many links for those who are interested in finding and trying vintage pens. But whether you work with vintage pens or the latest prefilled disposable pens, I hope you will enjoy the wonderful, relaxing activity of sketching. Best wishes,

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Links to the Net Links for topics that appear on pages in this book.

Page 4 SketchCrawl.com, a global drawing marathon. http://www.sketchcrawl.com/ Page 8 Pen & Ink Sketching Fountain Pens and Pen & Ink Sketching Replacement Nibs http://www.artsuppliesonline.com/ Page 9 Vintage pen repair and restoration http://www.pentiques.com/ Page 11 Platinum Carbon Black Ink http://www.swisherpens.com/ and http://stores.ebay.com/GreenMan508 or contact directly by e-mail, [email protected] Page 11 Pen & Ink No-Shellac India Black Ink http://www.artsuppliesonline.com/ and http://www.fineartstore.com/ Page 12 Noodler’s Ink article on fountain pen inks. http://www.pendemonium.com/ink_facts.htm Page 18 Bee Paper Company http://www.beepaper.com/ and Strathmore Papers http://www.strathmoreartist.com/ Page 20 Moleskine Journals http://www.moleskineus.com/moleskine-art.html Page 21 Gatorboard at DanielSmith.com http://www.danielsmith.com/ (Search for gatorboard.) Page 26 Ron Ranson Hake Brush http://www.cheapjoes.com/

Page 29 Watercolor Paints http://www.winsornewton.com/ Page 39 Pipettes for measuring inks when mixing new colors www.google.com (Search for “plastic pipettes ebay”) Page 41 Fountain Pen Inks http://www.pendemonium.com/ and http://www.swisherpens.com/ and http://www.fountainpennetwork.com/ (Choose “Inky Thoughts forum”) Page 48 Free Photo Images for artists to use as reference. http://www.PenInkWatercolorSketching.com Page 56 Sketch Crawl Galleries and blogs. http://www.sketchcrawl.com/ and http://www.sketchcrawl.com/blog/ Page 59 Gallery of Classic Drawings http://www.PenInkWatercolorSketching.com Page 60 The Fountain Pen Network http://www.fountainpennetwork.com/forum/ and Pentrace Articles http://www.pentrace.net/index.html and Richard Binder - Fountain Pens Reference Info http://www.richardspens.com/ Page 60 Nibs.com http://www.nibs.com/ArticleIndex.html http://www.nibs.com/PenMaintenance.htm

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