As said in my June Favourite's post, I mentioned my Windsor and Newton Drawing Inks. I love to use them to create hard shadows in my illustrations as well as to fill empty gaps in my drawings with vivid colours of these opaque mediums.

Despite being watery and similar to watercolour, I sometimes still struggle using them because of how pigmented they are. So after experimenting with them for a while and testing a few techniques, I've came up with ways to use these inks much more easier and effective so you can splash your canvases with inks the right way. 😉



Work with it like watercolour paints

I always thought working with inks would be much more different but it is, in fact, very similar to watercolours in terms of fluidity, texture and finish. So work with it like your watercolour painting, using watercolour techniques like wet-to-dry, dry-to-wet or wet-on-wet.



Dilute with water

Because they are so pigmented, a tiny spill of ink will stain your canvas and ruin your artwork and they can also stain the bristles of your brush. To solve this artist burden, all you have to do is dip your brush in water, similar to how you dilute the pigmentation in watercolour. Before spreading it on your paper, ensure you test it on another so it's in the right opaqueness!



Work in small amounts

Sometimes when I work with inks, I find that they are just ever so slightly thicker than watercolour. So to prevent any mistakes, I like to work in small amounts first, starting with drops of inks. Since they are a tiny bit thicker and little more absorbent than watercolours, that makes it a little bit harder to blend. So I suggest to work in small areas and gradually move along your canvas.



Work with light colours first

They are very vivid colours, so it's best if you started with lighter colours first. Working with lighter colours to begin with will reduce the risks of making a mistake. If you prefer to start off with dark colours, then go right ahead but it will be better if you stay safe rather than be sorry.



ALWAYS CLEAN YOUR BRUSHES

Inks. Do. Stain. A lot. So make sure that after every use you clean them properly! I forgot to clean one of mine and when I used it again, it presented hints of the black I used before and when it dried the bristles became stiff.



So these are just a few tips and tricks I learned whilst I played around with these inks! I wouldn't say they're my new favourite mediums because they are not easy to handle and they don't give me the results I want but they are a nice thing to have in your collection of art supplies! I think they are more preferred for typography or calligraphy using fountain pens because of how opaque they are, but I believe you can use them for when you're drawing manga or filling in something with a solid colour.

If you have any other tips on how to use inks, I would love to hear them and learn some more!

After weeks of pouring out every last bit of my creativity into my final art project, the feelings stress and anxiety have finally been released today. The last day. Of. Art. And I feel relieved but also proud of my hard work and effort I put into this last exam!

Tree of Nicole's Life

Above is the second final piece I did in the 10 hours (four days, 2 and a half hours each). When I first came in the exam, I literally had no plan. My mind was a bit disorganised because the day before we started I also had my drama exam in which rehearsals were the whole day, so I missed the art lesson, and we stayed in school until 9pm to perform (and I was nervous like hell) so I was too tired to prepare afterwards.

Despite my recklessness and disorganisation (I came with nothing. Legit) I managed to come up with an idea of a tree composition - I paint a tree and within the leaves and branches I blend in my other studies so it looks like they're part of the tree (as seen above).

I honestly had no idea why I painted that portrait (I had no idea what I was doing) but I feel like it adds a bit of enigma to the painting which I really like.



Above are some of my Dawn Clements inspired landscape composition paintings. I was thinking of turning them into a graphics piece by adding some text to make it Martin Wilner style, but I unfortunately ran out of time :c

I've also done some landscape photography which I used as my source material:





I didn't manage to take photos of all my work from the project, these are the only ones I managed to take but I hope you enjoy them!

Nicole ᵔᴥᵔ

Please read my disclaimer.

Recently, I've been working on my final project which is 'diary'. The project is mainly about the 'tree of life' which reiterates what trees symbolise by linking it with my life in a form of different type of diaries: from accordion books to pieces of paper stuck together to form a surreal and elongated composition.

'Journey across Dunorlan' - Dawn Clements inspired watercolour painting

Our final project ends with a 10 hour exam (like this one and this) where we create a final response to the topic question 'Diary' by producing our second final design.

Hey!

So, on Thursday 12th and Friday 13th I just had my art exam! It was a stressful week since I came back from a french immersion trip on Monday and I had to catch up on my missed work and revision for other upcoming exams and had to prepare for my art exam too.

Here are my finished pieces:

Here are some studies I started for my 'Disguise' art project:


The top left is a 'faceless' portrait of me, the idea inspired by the artist Gideon Rubin.
The one beside it is an Ariana Grande portrait covered and splattered in grey, black and white paint (powder I think) which was inspired by Januz Miralles.
Below is my still life drawing of a mask.

I am going to work on some photography today and maybe some tomorrow :)

PAINTING TIPS AND ADVICE:

I am not a professional nor did get any training but these are some tips and advice which I learned from my mistakes, my peers and teachers.

• So, first things first, before you start painting, make sure you do an outline of what you are about to paint or else you'll make a mistake an may have to start again! 
• Build up the colour, especially if you are doing watercolour and even when you're doing any art with colour. If you are doing watercolour, start out light with your paint being a low opacity (but don't add too much water or your paper will crease) and then slowly build up the colour until you get your desired result.
• When painting, start with a light colour (e.g white), so there's lesser chance you'll make a mistake. Because if you start with a dark colour like black and you make a mistake, you can't go back. But if you start with a light colour and you make a mistake, then you can just paint over that with a dark colour.