Playing with Ink and Wash

It's been awhile since I played with my water soluble inks so I grabbed two of my pens that have different inks and worked these three quick wash sketches.

All worked in the Hand.book.

First is using the Rotring Art Pen with a "F" nib.  As noted on the page, I had forgotten just how potent this ink is when water applied.  Normally I would use a flat brush as I can better control the wash but I was working with a waterbrush with these sketches.  Maybe using a smaller tipped waterbrush might have helped.

These next two pages is using one of my Pilot Prera fountain pens and Namiki Black ink.  It's much more subtle and easier to control.

**I screwed up with the placement of the back support beams......ooops**  :-)

Cedar Key Area Sketches

The weekend before Hurricane Hermine struck the Florida coast, my husband and I went to check Cedar Key out for possible kayaking and salt water fishing.

First place we stopped was the 4th Bridge going into the town.  There's a boat ramp there going out to the wetland area.  We were there at low tide and was extremely shallow.  Definitely a perfect place for a kayak.  We had the opportunity to watch an air boat put into the water and taking off.  Neat but LOUD.  It was fun watching it skim across mud flats and the shallow water.

After that we drove into town looking for the big T fishing pier.  I'm not one for crowds and the streets were really narrow.  It was busy that day and I just felt claustrophobic so we didn't spend much time there.  Maybe a weekday it might not be so bad but the weekend was probably a bad day to go (at least for me).

As we were leaving the busy town, we stopped at a few other areas that are part of Cedar Key.......believe it was a conservation area.

So sad what Hermine did to the place.  They were hit hard with many of the businesses and houses damaged.  :-(

Anyways..........here are a couple of sketches I worked based on the area we checked out.  I worked the pen and ink sketch while sitting up monitoring the storm keeping alert to warnings on TV and radio for our area while my husband and sons tried to sleep.  I used the sketching as a means to try and focus on keeping myself calm.

Watercolor first in Strathmore Visual Watercolor sketchbook and Platinum Carbon pen with Lexy Gray ink after color dried.

Platinum Carbon Desk Pen / Lexy Gray ink in the Handbook sketchbook.

This little sketch I did Aug 31st trying a different method of painting a palm tree.

Strathmore Visual Watercolor sketchbook, Platinum Carbon Desk Pen and Lexy Gray ink.