Currently Browsing: Inks 62 articles
Playing with Markers in Backgrounds
There are a gazillion ways to use wide tipped makers for backgrounds on your artwork. Typically you see me put backgrounds on some of my portraits AFTER I’ve drawn the portrait. I like cutting around the figure with the wide tip. It’s just fun. You can’t really see the edge of the portrait all the […]
What Happened with the Excess Stamp Ink from Yesterday’s Post?
Yesterday I showed you what you could do in 15 minutes with some rubber-stamp ink to prepare some background textures in your journal. You’ll remember there was a scrap of watercolor paper I also painted with the leftover ink. (See the bottom right of the above photo.) Here’s a bit of pattern/texture making fun you […]
Quick, Colorful Background Textures for Your Journal Pages
Lately I’ve been discussing keeping your creative flow going even if you only have 15 minutes a day. And I’ve mentioned pre-painting backgrounds. Today I’m walking you through the use of pigmented rubber stamp ink—but you can also use liquid acrylics or acrylic inks. Remember—if you are not going to use wet media on your […]
Short Projects for Holiday Schedules
Everyone knows I love projects. This is a video post, but first you need some context. Update 11.25.24: Please note this post got long and I didn’t cover different types of finishes to use if you’re working with watercolor. I will have suggestions in a blog post on Tuesday. If you’re framing these pieces under […]
Another Look at the Sennelier Ink Brush Pen
I mentioned the other day that I picked up four of the Sennelier Ink Brush Pens. Since then I keep using them for warm up sketches. Today you can see a warm-up sketch made with the Payne’s Gray brush pen. I’ve included the video of the sketch session on YouTube at this link. My […]
Looking at the Sennelier Ink Brush Pen
Note: I’ve just placed the sketches in order, in the gallery below. The order is important if you want to follow along with the experiment. I was working with photos of fair goers from @earthsworld. Early in April I saw an ad for the Sennelier Ink Brush Pen. They look like the Pentel ColorBrush. They […]
White Pens for Journaling and Painting
Last fall I was involved in a little grid project (rather a series of projects I was sharing and am sharing with my Patreon subscribers) I ended up with a lot of little collage squares leftover. And some blue paper squares leftover. And, as is apt to happen when you have squares of color paper […]
Useful Painting Tools: The Mouth Atomizer
As painters we do love our gadgets. But I like to find workhorse gadgets that have many applications and help me create an unusual texture or approach, while also speeding things up. The mouth atomizer is good for all that. It’s the perfect tool for artists who don’t own, or don’t want to deal with, […]
The Hocoro Fude Dip Pen From Sailor
A student wrote to me a few weeks back about a recently released dip pen—the Hocoro Fude Dip Pen from Sailor. I have fude pens from Sailor already. I use Platinum Carbon Black ink in them. It’s a pigmented black ink that will not clog fountain pens. I have had great success with it in […]
Tips on Drawing with a Dried Out Brush Pen (or Marker for that Matter)
At the left is the sketch I’ll be demonstrating in my video below. A persistent cough for the past 3 months has kept me from being chatty on my sketching videos. Most of these sketch videos end up as pieces for my Patreon demonstration site. But if I’m working silently to avoid coughing when I […]