Back to the easel

Mixed media (watercolor and ink) on Arches cold press paper 

Underpainting done with Speedball Elegant Writer pen brushed with water.

Mixed media abstract, watercolor and Posca pens

It's been a while since I posted. So now I need to catch up!

I've been watching a lot of video tutorials and reading quite a bit about watercolor but haven't spent much time putting my learning to practice. Finally tonight I dusted off the easel, wet the paints and went to work.

Tonight's project was a painting of Rudbeckia. I was inspired by a video by watercolorist Karlyn Holman to do a drawing using a Speedball Elegant Writer pen. The trick is to use a wet brush to activate the pen's ink after you complete the drawing. Once the ink is wet you can spread it around with a brush, and after that dries it becomes permanent. While wet the black ink tends to separate into green and pink and shades in between. Very cool. You can stop after 'painting' the ink with water (see underpainting above), or you can layer watercolor. The trick before painting with watercolor is to make sure all the Elegant Writer ink has been activated with water (either via brush or a spraying a fine mist of water) and letting it dry first, otherwise you will be spreading ink when you layer on the watercolor.

The bottom painting was done with watercolor and Posca markers. I think it looks like an overgrown potted plant.