trying something new

My previous sketch (of Egret, the cat) was an exercise in doing watercolor first, then ink — as presented in Mike Daikubara’s new book Color First, Ink Later. I have always been more of a pencil or ink sketcher, just adding watercolor to “color it in”. I love color; I just think more in terms of line.

So jumping in with watercolor first is a bit of a stretch for me. My normal style is also very controlled, so the “dripping” step is new for me. It worked somewhat on the sketch of Egret but my paint dried too quick to have anything left to drip on the above sketch of my tools.

In the book, Mike gives a list of his chosen tools; I gathered what I already owned and substituted where needed. I went ahead and used my Namiki Falcon fountain pen for the ink step above; for the cat sketch I used the felt tip brush pen. On some papers the fountain pen would tend to make much broader strokes than usual when used over watercolor, so the felt tip is probably the better choice.

My Pentel brush pen with “light black” ink (looks gray; can’t remember the precise name of it as I’ve had it a very long time) is a bit on the dark side. I’ve ordered some lighter gray pens like those Mike uses.

Overall, I think I’m going to love this color first, ink later method — as long as I can still use a little pencil first for my lines! It would be much better for capturing landscapes and forest scenes; I never know quite where to begin when drawing them in ink. And I love how watercolors mix together on paper, though I need to be sure I’m using more water than I usually do.

That older Pocket Palette behind my regular one has been set up with 2 sizes of large mixing pans and a bit of sponge in between them, for dabbing a brush on. I’d like to let colors mix more on the page (usually I pre-mix for exact colors) but these pans let me mix juicy amounts of washes.