IMMUTABLE Pen and Wash Drawing - Day 26 of the 30 day challenge

Immutable

Pean and Wash

30x40cm (12x16in) on watercolour paper

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Day 26 of Jan 2017 30 paintings challenge

Click Here to see Day 21's painting

Continuing yesterday's theme with pen and wash in a larger format. Instead of using Chinese ink (which is so so black) I used black watercolour for a much softer black. I paid good attention to composition rules, no shape the same size, interesting lines avoiding straight and parallel lines, variety of marks. Even so I still ended up with some similar repeated shapes.

Once again this was created in the evening sitting on the sofa and half-watching tv. I just managed to finish it as I stopped for an hour to actually watch SKY Portrait Artist of the Year. All nine contestants, a mix of professional and amateur, produced some stunning celebrity portraits. It's a genre I've always shied away from - Maybe that could be my next subject for September's challenge!


I decided I went a bit overboard with the wash, so I will tone down areas of the background wash.



I also washed over one of yesterday's paintings with yellow ochre to see what the effect would be:

Another interesting effect. Sepia ink instead of black, would also work well.

INK STUDIES day 25 of 30 paintings challenge

My lack of motivation continued today. I played around with an idea I had but didn't take it far enough to post a painting. Last night I gave myself a strong talking to. I was looking through an exhibition catalogue of a Michel Gaudet (a French abstract painter) exhibition and that must have sparked something off.

While watching tv, I got out my watercolour pad, a Uniball micro pen and some water and started seeing what effects I could get.

This was the first

This was the second. Getting more complex

I loved the effect I could get just using the one pen. The ink dried very quickly and was waterproof once dry, but while it was wet it gave a lovely water colour effect.

On some of the lines I wet it and went back in with the pen to achieve some softer edge and spread the dissolve ink to give me the wash. The blots were created with cling film (food wrap) scrunched up and dipped in diluted chinese ink. The chinese ink is so strong, and very black and I would have liked the black areas to be less intense. A final splattering of ink finished it off.

Definitely an idea I can take forward.

Creativity is a funny thing - it is definitely enhanced by 'doing'.