The first of this groups is a study of a pumpkin which really was an experiment in some new colored inks I bought on clearance. I'm using Yatsumoto Splash Ink (you can find it on amazon here), which are specially formulated colored inks which come with a mixing chart and recipes for mixing just about any color you can imagine. I'd never used them before. I mixed up an orange and a purple and gave them a whirl, just to find out how they'd dilute with water, how they'd mix on the page and how they'd differ from watercolor.
I only mixed a tiny bit of each color, but I really liked them, particularly how they layered over each other and had a bit of translucence. I resisted the urge to go over it with black ink lines, but since I did it in ink, I figured it counted for Inktober!
The next two pieces build on a different kind of scribbling I've been doing this month. To counterbalance the precise outline sorts of drawings I've done for Inktober, I've also done some loose, abstract experiments with watercolors.
I've been scribbling--just making marks on paper, pouring paints, layering with water, testing various effects. Just learning, learning, what the paints will do.
Every now and then I look down and see something emerging from the shapes. So for my next two Inktober pieces, I went ahead and drew with dip pen on top of the watercolors, just to see what would come out.
The first is a close-up of some fall leaves.
Lots of those everywhere around my home right now. In terms of the watercolor, I love how the blue ran and bloomed in the background. Once it dried, I put in the other colors, wet and thick and tipped the paper so they would run. Then I followed the lines and shadows in the dried version to pull out the leaves.
The next one is a little more abstract. I soaked the paper and then took little bits of color I had left on my palette. I laid it into one edge with a brush, then tipped the paper around so it would flow. Then I let it dry.
When I looked at the page, all I could see was this thinking man and the doorway behind him. So, I just used a little ink to bring him out.
Looking for shapes in abstract, almost happenstance, color blobs is a little like looking for shapes in the clouds. The associative, imaginative nature of it feels wonderfully freeing. And even though the painted shapes don't move like clouds do, changing the angle of the paper reveals new shapes in much the same way.
There's something meditative about it all.
Only a few more drawings to go in Inktober! I wonder what I will draw next?
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