I have always liked Indian ink and the things you can do with it. This is probably why I ended up using acrylic ink, which reacts in a similar way when certain techniques are applied.
Having done many paintings in just acrylic ink, drawing with the dropper, I thought I'd try using black ink in combination.
Sunflowers are available at the moment and drawing with just yellow on white paper doesn't really work with my normal technique - not enough colour contrast. This is a combination of the two inks - don't know if it worked, but one always needs to do a little experimentation every so often....
I then thought it would be rather nice to do some monochrome pictures, foregoing my usual bright colours and just relying on the textures created by the inks.
After a few disasters (where I remembered too late that Indian ink is indelible - so if it looks quite good - leave it, don't fiddle and add more, because it doesn't work....) - I ended up with this one of sea holly. This is actually a combination of Winsor and Newton Indian ink and also their drawing ink. The former is an intense black and waterproof, the other is more subtle and not waterproof - the combination works well, giving me areas of more delicate pigment alongside intense areas.
This is a closeup of the flower head itself. I was really delighted with the textures achieved here. I wasn't sure how I was going to indicate the detail - with acrylic inks I mixed different colours together, but here I didn't have that option. Salt would give some texture, but I wanted more. So I transferred some of my rubbing alcohol into a small bottle with a dropper - combined the two products on to the wet ink and hey presto - a lovely texture. This is why it is always good to have some play time to experiment - you never know what you might come up with.
Think I am going to head upstairs again to try some more of these. I always feel that not everyone wants incredibly vibrant paintings (like my acrylic ink ones) so I want to get some different ones done for the Michaelhouse exhibition in November.
I have picked up some interesting things from the hedgerow whilst out on the dog walk - lots of berries/dried foliage available at the moment. Must remember to take secateurs next time, along with gloves and a bigger bag - love teasels, but they are pretty vicious on the fingers! Also found out that fresh cow parsley doesn't last - wilts almost immediately so will have to stick to sketching out on the fields or bringing home dried stems. However, angelica keeps going in the vase for days, so definitely going to try that in this series.
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