Water-soluble ink experiments

I appreciate having time at home to experiment with materials. For the past week or two, I’ve been drawing with an assortment of red and yellow inks, and then adding watercolour to them. This is a follow-up to the echinacea that I painted last week.

On Thursday I met my friend Susanne Strater for a sketching session at Greenwood Centre in Hudson. She worked in pastel and I drew with my Lamy pen that was filled with Ancient Copper ink. If you happen to be in Hudson, Greenwood is a very welcoming place to sketch, and the hydrangeas are at their peak right now.

On the weekend we visited friends at their camp in the Northern Adirondacks. My favourite time of day to sketch when we visit is in the early morning when the water is very calm. The only company I have then — besides Alice — is the loons, the ducks, and the occasional high-flying eagle. I used Noodler’s Apache Sunset ink (now called Southwest Sunset) and dip pen for this drawing, and added watercolour on top of that.

This morning I was back in Hudson, sitting on a bench and drawing a view of Main Road. I used a Stabilo Point 88 fineliner in Sanguine for my initial drawing. It’s a water-based ink but it releases less pigment than the two previous inks.