Over the weekend I saw a beautiful watercolour of a bird on Reddit posted by V4nG0ghs34r77.
I thought it was beautifully done and I really liked the way the artist had mixed ink and watercolour to great effect.
Often with “Line and Wash” paintings I find myself quite underwhelmed because they seem so often to look twee and sort of chocolate box’y which just doesn’t work for me. I can’t stand it. (This is just a personal taste, not because any particular style of art is better than any other.) But V4nG0ghs34r77 used the ink in ways which gave it depth and texture and it really worked!
So I’ve been playing around with ink and watercolour this week to see what I can make.
I began with a chameleon…
(The chameleon and branch are watercolour and ink but the background was added digitally.)
And then went on to sketch a bit of an owl…
(This is all watercolour and ink – no digital stuff.)
The owl was definitely my favourite. When I drew and painted it I was really in a place where I was just playing around, not formally painting anything. I think this really helped because it was just a rough ink sketch with some watercolour dabbed on wherever I thought. I didn’t use any reference except for a photo for the eyes. In terms of colour I went with a paynes grey / ultramarine mix against a cadmium yellow / yellow ochre / burnt umber mix. Because they felt like opposites and gave a nice contrast to each other.
This is the first time I’ve been able to really loosen up when inking and painting. I kind of treated the whole thing like a sketch. I am pleased with the results.