Art Day: Art Tips – ink washes, color and a meme

Adrienne tagged me for the Kreativ Blogger Award. For this award, I’m supposed to list seven things I love. Since everyone seemed to like the last meme I did, where I combined 2 memes, I thought I’d combine the Kreativ Blogger Award with today’s art tips. What I’m going to do is list the 7 things I love about working with ink, or things I don’t love that can be turned around to something positive. I’ll add a tip after each number, which makes 7 art tips in this post :)

Does it sound like fun? Or just plain crazy? Let’s find out!

One: I love working with pen and ink.
Tip: After doing a few drawings in pen and ink, go back to your regular medium and see what happens. I find that drawing in pen and ink brings more life to my acrylic painting.

Two: Ink washes are nothing like watercolor washes, which can be frustrating.
Tip: If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again. An old saying that came true for me last week when I finally found a way to make painting, with acrylic on paper, work. Unfortunately, I still haven’t made ink washes work. (The ink doesn't spread like watercolor, but seeps into the paper right away, making it hard to do a wash.) After the breakthrough with acrylic on paper, I think the type of paper and/or the amount of water could be the problem. Either that or I need a bigger brush. I’m going to keep experimenting until I get a result I like.

Three: Ink washes work well on small areas.
Tip: Play around with washes that fill in areas of your drawing. Once you master that, it may help you discover how to do larger areas of ink washes (at least I hope it will).

Four: Colored inks offer a variety of choices.
Tip: Different brands produce different results. The new Liquitex acrylic ink colors are bright like their paints. Higgins colored inks are more transparent and pastel.

Five: I like using a pen with my colored inks, instead of just using a brush for a wash, or coloring in my drawings.
Tips: Try using different colors to outline and shade in a drawing, and see what happens.

Six: You can use pen and ink just like a pencil or regular pen.
Tips: Write notes, doodle, sketch, draw free-hand, have fun! You never know what will happen when you let go and play.

Seven: Ink is more permanent than watercolor.
Tips: Try combining pen and ink with other mediums, like colored pencil, watercolor pencil, collage, acrylic, gouache, watercolor, or cut paper.

Now I’m supposed to pass on the Kreativ Blogger Award to seven other people. I can only pick seven, which is hard, so I put names in a hat and picked: pbwriter, annamlewis, Kelly Polark, jamarattigan, Jacqui, kellyrfineman, and lkmadigan. If anyone else wants to play too, go for it!