A week or so a friend asked me to help him work out a new idea or two for using Liquid Pencil. I got my books about sketching out for some inspiration. You can see all my sketching books on this page on my website. We found quite a number of good ideas, but this one was the most effective and the simplest. It is an adaptation of a drawing in Moira Huntly’s The Artist’s Drawing Book
These initial experimentations are postcard size, though I’m looking forward to doing a large one. If you click on one, you will see it actual size. We used permanent liquid pencil – it also comes in a rewettable variety. We started by blobbing on runny liquid pencil (watered down) and blowing it in various directions. We didn’t have any straws to blow through so we just tilted and turned the paper and it worked fine.
Once that was dry (having run up to the shop to buy straws) I put out Matisse Inks in Ultra Blue, Green, Carmine and Yellow. The blue was used alone, and the green was used both alone or ‘olivised’ with some red and yellow. Each colour was allowed to dry before putting on the next colour.
The last step was to paint on some leaves and fronds using white ink tinted with one of the greens I had used. Moira Huntly’s version used watercolour pencils, but I found that didn’t work for me, nor a white charcoal pencil. I painted the leafy shapes with a No 3 (small) sable brush. I plan to try the ink again but with a pen and nib. I think that line would differ more from the blown lines of ink and perhaps be more dynamic.
