Watercolours

I thought that it was about time to get away from my very regimented black pen line drawings, so I decided to have a go at bringing a bit of colour into my life. Water colours seemed the natural starting point to mix my pen and and ink together.

First attempt was a 15 minute sketch using fountain pen and then wash over the top. I liked how the blue black ink provided a nice medium for shading the windows but the dilution of the lines meant that I had to go back over my drawing at a later date, slowing the process down.

Attempt two I blocked out the perspective lines using pencil and then filled in with blocks of colour to suit. Once the paper was dried (very handily using the fans in my car) I proceeded to ink in the detail. The process was pretty quick with the whole painting taking me about 35 minutes from start to finish. The watercolours bring in a softness and a different dynamic to the image sometimes not picked up by pen only. I felt less precious about the drawing and concentrated more on getting the atmosphere and colours correct. I am pleased about some aspects of the drawing, but there is a lot of room for improvement, it will certainly be interesting to compare this to my drawings in a few months time during the scholarship. One thing I did find irritating was carrying around water for my brushes and bending my brushes in my bad, I will look at investing in some watercolour pen / brushes going forward