'Wet' Sketching in Pen & Ink using washes - includes advice about materials & techniques

BTW, this is the 200-th blog posting.

'Banister, Chateau de Issigeac'
pen & ink
A5 sketchbook
© The Artist.

I love watercolour. It's a wet medium...which is also very difficult. Being difficult, it requires practice. Alot of practice. And since it is a wet medium, it is made with water & not 'dry' stuff like pencils. So you need to practice with water (brush & nib) & not pencils (& oils).

Sometimes it is not possible to bring out all the materials & paint. Sometimes you are moving about & have no desire to cart about all the heavy, complicated clobber & paints. But then you want to 'paint', rather than 'draw'. 'Wet' sketching, if you like. (Don't try it the rain). Kind of a half-way house between painting & drawing. No colour. Tonality. Brushwork on top of a drawing framework.

The pen & ink & wash kit is perfect for 'wet' sketching.

Look at the kit in the image below ( you might need to click on it to see a larger version of it). It all fits neatly into my coat pocket.

Materials of the 'wet' sketching kit

1. A pencil.
2. A pen with a clean nib. I like old fashioned calligraphy nibs with a well. Keep it clean. Old crusty ink on a nib inhibits flow.
   
3. An A5 sketch pad, hard bound, of smooth cartridge paper. At least 160 gms (error in the above photo) as the ink bleeds along the the fibres of the cellulouse in cheap, light weight paper. Or even better, hot press 300gms if you mean to get wet & do several washes. The smooth texture is all important as nibs 'spit' 'bleed' & 'dribble' on rough paper.
   
4. Ink. I like the German brands. They seem to have just the right concentration, mix of shellac, 'bite' & staining power. The brand 'Rohrer & Klingner' dilutes well & is indeliuble (doesn't lift off the paper), unlike most watercolour. Kept in a bottle that doesn't leak.
   
5. A small bottle of water. You don't need much.
   
6. A travel brush. Sable if possible. It has a lid just like a pen,so you don't have to worry about damaging the point whilst in transit.
7. A metal box - the lid doubles up as the palette.
8. All importantly, tissue paper. Remember those inky fingers from school days?
9. An ink well - see below - I fill it up to the depth of the nib with ink befoore starting & thus only have to dip my nib to the bottom for it to be perfectly charged each time. Imperfectly charged nibs will ruin a work; either they are over-charged ie risk to bleed or under-charged ie risk to not give a long line. This is a good tip, especially as you aren't always in a comfortable, easy position whilst sketching.
   

my ink well - an old marmalade pot (note the clean fingers & clean nib - thank you tissue paper)



The Process by which I sketched 'Banister, Chateau de Issigeac' Described Step-by-Step

OK - I'm now going to describe the process by which I made the above pen & ink wash sketch. It's pitched at the intermediate level & contains a fair bit of jargon such as 'side by side' as well as key concepts such as 'white in watercolour', so it might be above the heads of beginners. There nothing better than actually seeing the gestures , seeing how the painting unfolds (then of course, having a go at it yourself), hence the importance of demonstrations, where you get to see in a relatively none-wordy way 'how it is done', see the savoir-faire in action... Anyway, here it is, for what it's worth, written down in step by step 'recipe' form. Print it out & go give it a go yourself! Hope it helps.
Come & Sketch on an art workshop in France with Adam Cope

'Banister, Chateau de Issigeac'
pen & ink
A5 sketchbook - 300 gms hot pressed 'Canson' red travel pad
© The Artist.
(here the image is again so you can try & detect the signs of each step in the finished artwork; they are all there & all visible, I asssure you).

1. Start off sketching in lightly with a pencil - look for the composition, identify the idea, the focal point etc, get the dimensions right etc
2. Harden up the drawing with the ink using the nib. Go over the pencil lines if they are good, improve on them if they aren't. Note there's no rubber. Remember you can't rub ink out nor can you really 'repent' with the washes. An example of this in the above drawing is the crooked banister-jam (skateboard damage?): I didn't get the right degree of wonkiness in pencil first time but got it right second pass with the nib.
   
3. Work from light to dark. Side by side basically, not much wet on wet. Plan your high whites, which are the white of the paper. Probably easiest to simplify the tones to four or five basic values.
4. Using the brush, palette & water, dilute a spot of ink into a lot of water. Wash in the fine, light tones first of all. Work delicately around the line-work that you did with the nib, being aware that to touch the ink of the nibbed in lines, would cause them to bleed (which can be fun). Ink often has shellac in it & dries differently from watercolour, so be wary of ink that looks dry but isn't really. I always try & leave to finished ink work to dry for at least ten minutes before shutting the sketch pad, to give you an idea of how wary of drying times you must be.
5. Warning : DON'T GET TOO WET. It's a sketch & not a fully fledged watercolour. Use the tissue paper to 'dry-charge' your brush. The tissue will absorb excess wetness in the charge.
   
6. Use the brush to strengthen the dark values with pure undiluted ink.
   
7. Don't overwork it. Leave it the sunshine, get up & stretch your legs & have a nosey around. Honestly, don't overwork it.

See more pen & inks by Adam Cope
(also you can click on the pen and ink category in this blog)

post-scriptum - the things i forgot to say....