Some Sketches: Inkpen, Watercolour, Gouache, Art App Media…

Drawn with a dark sepia inkpen, and then added watercolour washes.

Mostly my art is inspired by scenes from home – my favourite place to be. I’m not often directly looking at the subject matter. However: bowls, teapots, fruit, a vase of flowers, pot-plants, the garden, gumtrees, paddocks, bushland, birds…are daily in view – providing many delightful shapes and colours; and different plays of light throughout the day. Thankful!†

A painting of a pear — Watercolour and gouache on highly textured, cotton watercolour paper.

I love to experiment with different paper surfaces; both for drawing and painting – and for inkjet printing. Roughly textured watercolour paper, can add quite an interesting element to my watercolours – as in my watercolour above.

It’s surprising how well many non-inkjet papers make for an effective print. My printer uses pigment ink and therefore, if I want to do further work on a print with watercolour or gouache… the ink doesn’t run. The print below is on a “cold press” type of watercolour paper. This link here has some info on different types of watercolour paper.

Still life — Firstly I did a small black and white inkpen sketch, then took it into the Procreate app and with my fingertip added colour. Then I did an inkjet print of it onto an A5 sheet of watercolour paper…was pleased how well the print turned out,

Still life watercolour and inkpen. — Inkpen and watercolour. The puddles of paint became “cauliflower’ shapes in places – little accidents which I kinda like.

Pears and birds drawing — Drawn with my fingertip in Procreate, using the Ink bleed pen, and the Stucco 1/ brush. Pears are often a favourite subject matter.

Landscape — Inkpen and watercolour. Plenty of bushland around where I live .

Landscape with a small house — Inkpen and watercolour on cotton watercolour paper. Often this type of little dwelling appears in my landscapes.

Playing around with a brown inkpen and wash.

Drawn with my fingertip using the artist crayon, and dry ink in Procreate.

I like the graphic style of the above drawing. There are brushes in the Procreate app that really lend themselves to creating this type of look.

I particular like a brush called “Nikko Rull”. It can give my line-work a sort of Lino block print effect – as in the drawing below. I may have shared this drawing in a post a fair while back. Think I’ll use this brush again soon.