I am officially on holidays! Yay for me and all other school teachers! So here is one unit of work that my year 9s have almost finished. I’ve done this unit with my year 9s over the last few years and I think it’s really worthwhile because it covers ink drawing, water colour painting and still life composition all in one.
I start by getting the kids to do some practice drawing in their visual diaries with ink and skewers. At this point they all start complaining about the ink running and smudging. “That’s the point!” They soon get over it and let the ink run and be free, which ends up creating some beautiful line work.
After they have drawn their image, they can then use water colour paints to add colour.
Once the kids get over the fact that ink, water and watercolour paints are going to run into eachother and not look “neat”, they actually have a lot of fun with it and find it quite liberating.
Some tips? Discourage the use of too much water and repeated brush strokes over the same area! Even though the paper disintegrates before their eyes, they keep brushing! Good quality water colour paper is a must and I tell the kids how expensive it is too. If they have to start again, they get crappy cartridge paper.
Hopefully all these paintings will be finished at the beginning of next term and I’ll post some up to show you.
Hello there
Yes ink drawing is a excellent medium to draw with as you would know. Ink is fare more soupier to watercolor. I am wondering why you did use watercolor at all as ink dries fast and will not bleed when re wetting paper after drying.. Watercolor will and as you know watercolor can get muddy and bleed etc. if you are not careful.
Perhaps you where saving ink by using watercolor for expense reasons. Not sure why.
I use small classes with a little bit of de stilled water and a cleaned eyedropper with a little ink for a light shades. Each time I brush over say part of the same color already brushed. It will add up another shade each time getting darker. Yes diluted black is very good to get the shadows and out lines etc. This takes a bit of planing beforehand. Yes the paper must be top quality. I put under the shower just to get it evenly wet and lay on some paper towels to settle for awhile. This is the beauty of ink as when it dries and the paper you can dampen again and brush your colors with out the original ink from bleeding.
Being an art teacher you probably are quite aware of my two bits here. I just sort of wondered why you did not use all ink. Oh yes Art Masking fluid is a nice thing to use for keeping certain areas from brushing. Then peeling off for later color washing etc.
I just thought I would give ink the thumbs up as it is absolutely fantastic and vibrant. Clear in depth as long as you keep things clean like water, brushes, eyedropper’s, mixing ink etc.
Anyway all the best to you and good luck with your art.
Cheers from
Len
Oh yes
Art Masking fluid.
If used. Be careful and test a little on the back of your paper before you start your drawing to see if it will peel off ok.
Cheap paper it will soak in and when dry it will not come off very well and rip the surface of your paper.
When you do remove masking fluid after drying. I use a rubber eraser rubbing gently and peeling.
Good luck