Ink wash experiments

Ink wash, 6X8

For Christmas I received a bottle of Private Reserve Ink in Midnight Blues. It's for fountain pens and is great for washes. I just found that out. It's very dark for writing, but add a little water and it lightens into a rich blue. Using a brush pen filled with water I started experimenting yesterday. So many plein air sketchers talk about using ink washes, I had to figure out how to do it.

I recently found a set of Winsor & Newton inks on the bargain shelf at Michaels (someone had stolen the black) at a greatly reduced price. It's a set of eight, well seven, but I already have black. Now I look forward to trying this with them. I still want to continue drawing in them, now I want to try adding a little water with the brush pen to see what happens.

This was a quick experiment with Mont Blonc's Toffee ink. It writes and draws as a rich dark brown, but with the brush pen it attenuates to a redder color. It was wonderful to see what happens as you play with it and smoosh it around to see what it does.

I went back to one of my current sketch books in which I had drawings with this same ink and just touched in a little water. Wow. Ok some did NOT look better for it, but it was "wicked brilliant" what it did to some. It seems to work best to soften shadows, but leave the outlines as much as possible.
Those pictures are not posted because it was light weight sketch paper and is now ruffly from the water. I wish I knew of a hard bound sketch book with heavier paper that could stand a bit of water. Not quite 140lb paper, but something heavier than in the "Reflections" books I have. They are good for sketching and drawing, as long as you don't get too much ink on the page or it will soak through. Yes, it's that light. Pentel and Tombow seem to do alright, and the Rapidograph. But I have to be careful with fountain pens, anything that can let a lot of ink flow.

Can anyone suggest one? I prefer hard bound, but that may have to change.

When to go vivid (and all that entails) and when to be subtle?

In a painting group one of the other artists had set up this grouping to work on an impressionist piece. I just loved the items, their textures, warm and subtle colors. I asked his permission to take a couple of pictures so I could try it, and it was given.

This is my 8X10 acrylic result. The other artist did some amazing things with brighter colors, more impressionist shapes, and in oils. It was fascinating to see how differently things can be seen.

Next it would be good to explore a somewhat wilder version, more like an art instructor would like. For some reason it's good for me to try realistic first, to get familiar with the shapes, colors and textures, "internalize" them maybe? Whatever, it gets my hands familiar with the shapes, my eyes familiar with the colors etc. Then it seems easier to loosen up and try an impressionist version. Or, then again, maybe I need to fuss over the realistic version until I'm satisfied, or fed up, then my imagination starts really kicking in to liven things up! This second version will be with oils, easier to keep playing with it more.

Here is another project of a completely different kind. This is the unfinished version. It's further along now, the holes have been filled in. Have I said all this before?
Anyway, this is a result of working with the Great Dickens Christmas Fair in San Francisco last December. I went in 1830's dress (women of a certain age are free to wear styles from their youth). During that period the huge mutton leg sleeve was very popular (see the original Dr Doolittle opening scenes with the Dr's sister) and a special cape collar called a pelerine was also very popular. They were often of very fine stuff like lawn or batiste with embroidery, or fine lace. I had made one of some machine made lace that looks really good, but I'd always wanted to try to make a lace one from scratch, since they have a very distinctive shape. I had a bit of a search to come up with a motif that I could adapt to the shape, but the biggest thing turned out to be finding the thread! Who knew how much it would take! I'm using a fine thread (#30) in white, but there are a lot a whites out there. It took the better part of a month to find more of the exact same white. And YES, you can tell if it's not the same white. At last I was able to obtain enough to finish. On the pattern, I'm winging it so right now I'm in the hard part of the decision process, the final shaping and finishing details.
Gotta go, I'm off to my painting group now!

Once more with feeling!

Lately I've painted a lot with which I was not too pleased. Don't worry, they are not going on line. The backs can be used to try again.
When things sometimes are not turning out as one has hoped there are a number of things to which one should resort. I start Spiritually. It's as basic as you can get, like "centering," it's the time to reaffirm Love. Then I might just paint a pear. This time I added an apple. They are about 8X8" watercolors. I layered them with color endlessly to build glazes. The background ended up so dark, for the signature, instead of painting it I removed paint. That felt better.
I'm going to offer these at about half price, $110.00 each, as a pair.
For sometime I've been wanting to take a drive up to Sonoma for a visit and some painting, but I have had trouble prying myself out of the house. It's an old habit from when I had to be here if I wasn't in the office or the grocery store. Part of that Spiritualizing of my thinking freed me from a "captive" thought. I painted the fish in the previous post, got the scheduled maintenance done on the car and headed out to the vineyards yesterday!
It was wonderful, nice cool breeze, bright sun, fresh air, all the good stuff. A perfect painting day. I sketched most of the day, but there were distractions. The plaza in Sonoma is a lovely place and truly the center of the town's activity. I relaxed and snapped pictures and sketched the ponds and enjoyed myself. Traffic can be more of a parking lot between there and my home, so I delayed going home quite a while.
Well, that was an extra good thing too. A farmers market (perfect for an agricultural area) etc. set up about 6PM on the drive in front of the old City Hall in the middle of the plaza. So...I got tomatoes and onions, then I sat down and enjoyed the live music. While I was just sitting there happy as a clam, a lady walked by who had just bought a big bouquet of flowers and she gave me one, right out of the blue! What a perfectly lovely gesture! Love is reflected in Love. This sweet gesture lingers as I look at this pretty salmon/magenta zinnia today.
A bit later I moseyed (well, waddled) back to the car (right at the plaza) and drove home. I missed the bad traffic and got home in good time. Dinner was some nuked leftovers, Nova, and some more painting. Heaven. I wish all of you the same.