I'm looking for pointers on using wet media such as ink. My instructor in my Life Drawing class wants us to start experimenting with wet media, and I like the qualities that can be achieved with black ink.

It appears to have the same values as charcoal.

Any word of advise from anyone?

Regards,
Gilbert

We work with ink washes at the high school. I usually just teach them to use ink like watercolor, creating darker values by adding layers of color. The greatest struggle they have is visualizing shadows but it is true that the older you get the more you see those little differences between lights and darks. It has to be a brain development issue!
I do allow my students to begin with pencil sketches, though, because once they mess up the contour drawing using ink they never want to finish it with the washes. It's always a struggle! By the end of all of the lessons they do work only with ink from start to finish but they always like the first ones better.
Have fun with it!

Yes! it does look like it will be interesting to use. I'll let you know how it goes.

Regards,
Gilbert

You can use ink either as drawing, using hatching lines or as a wash as bkluver has mentioned. Its worth experimenting with.

Pen is permenent of course and once you make a stroke it stays. So it takes some thought before you commit your stroke or wash to paper. Having said that though, you can fudge it a little and work around some not so well placed marks on paper.

You can use ink either as drawing, using hatching lines or as a wash as bkluver has mentioned. Its worth experimenting with.

Pen is permenent of course and once you make a stroke it stays. So it takes some thought before you commit your stroke or wash to paper. Having said that though, you can fudge it a little and work around some not so well placed marks on paper.

There are some other students that are using a brush with ink in combination with a bambo pen. It does look a bit messy. I purchased three round tip brushes; large, med and small. I also purchased a tablet of water color paper since I believe that would work better then standard drawing paper.

I'll try and think in terms of value when drawing.

I'll post my results here.

Regards,
Gilbert

I should have been more specific when answering this question.
We do use pen and ink for many different assignments which include hatching, cross-hatching and contour hatching, as well as washes.
For the figure drawings, though, I usually begin with just contour drawings and washes of varying values. I then usually have them go directly to just washes; then they can choose whatever direction they want to try more. They usually really like working with the ink washes - as it builds and more and more of the 3-D quality of the figures emerge they get quite excited!

Well! I tried my first ink experiment/drawing today. I was somewhat surprised. I think I'm going to like the media. If you folks have any to share or a favorite artist you can point me to that would be great!

I'll post my attempt tomorrow. It's getting late, so I'm signing off for now.

Take care, and thanks for the support. All of you are great!

I'll be watching to see what you are doing!

Here are some of my first attempts with ink. Material used

Three bambo brushes small, medium and large.

a divider tray for diffent values of ink. Dark, medium and light. I add water to create different values.

Sumi ink
Dr PH Martin's Black Star Ink

I'm using water color paper too. I also happen to notice that when taking a picture reflection dots appear with water color paper. I may test some of my photos' to see if I can make a better picture later. I hope you like my drawings.
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I think you're very brave. I don't think I could start to draw without my putty rubber handy! The thought of not being able to rub out scares me.

It is scary, but the values are very striking with ink. It is very similar to charcoal. Images drawn with ink develop a unique character about them.
It’s fun to experiment. I also found out I can get different colors instead of black. Will see what happens. I’m also going to post all the tools today of what I’m using. Perhaps I can even start a discussion on just ink?

Material used to make this Self portrait in black ink.

Bambo pen
small bambo brush
Sumi Ink
Section tray
Water color paper and patients
I started out image with charcoal vine. Then after I felt I captured the image I started going over with ink pen to add hair and value

The ink tray I created value by center tray was full ink strength, next tray was watered down 50/50 last tray 25ink and 75% water. I measure the water using an eye dropper and counting the drops of water per tray. I hope you like. Comments welcome.

i own a tattoo studio and we do alot of traditional tattoo flash with liquid watercolor the phmartian brand and we use a method called spit shading check it out its acually cool