Painting with Indian Ink:
Indian ink is often underappreciated as a medium for painting. But the results can be stunning with bold dark black brushstrokes that can be varied from thick to thin in the very same brush movement.
What is Indian Ink?
Indian ink is a black ink once widely used for writing and printing and now more commonly used for drawing, especially when inking comic characters and comic strips. It is thin like water yet bold and dark in colour. This can be diluted with water to make shades of grey.
Indian ink is often underappreciated as a medium for painting. But the results can be stunning with bold dark black brushstrokes that can be varied from thick to thin in the very same brush movement.
What is Indian Ink?
Indian ink is a black ink once widely used for writing and printing and now more commonly used for drawing, especially when inking comic characters and comic strips. It is thin like water yet bold and dark in colour. This can be diluted with water to make shades of grey.
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Brushes or Dip Pens? When it comes to painting with Indian ink the dip pen will offer the artist finer details and a lot of the techniques that are used with pencils, like shading and hatching. The pen is easier to use and can be a quicker way to get your ideas on paper quickly. However, for bold and expressive artworks, the brush is the tool that will give you that full bodied brushstrokes that you just can’t get with technical and dip pens. Ideal for making a bold raw expressive statement. |
Artworks by Jade Sintes
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Best brush and paper to use?
Use traditional watercolour methods to paint with Indian Ink using sable brushes and watercolour papers. Synthetic brushes can work too but sable offers more control and longer lasting brushstrokes as the sable brush hair will hold more ink.
Cleaning your brush thoroughly is important as the Indian Ink is a permanent ink.
Advice?
Spontaneity takes practice: What you paint cannot be easily undone so be patient and practice. Be prepared to make mistakes. But the final rewards for those mistakes are paintings that are full of passion, spontaneity and rawness rarely seen in carefully drawn dip pen and pencil work.
FAS Indian Ink >>
Use traditional watercolour methods to paint with Indian Ink using sable brushes and watercolour papers. Synthetic brushes can work too but sable offers more control and longer lasting brushstrokes as the sable brush hair will hold more ink.
Cleaning your brush thoroughly is important as the Indian Ink is a permanent ink.
Advice?
Spontaneity takes practice: What you paint cannot be easily undone so be patient and practice. Be prepared to make mistakes. But the final rewards for those mistakes are paintings that are full of passion, spontaneity and rawness rarely seen in carefully drawn dip pen and pencil work.
FAS Indian Ink >>
by Jade Sintes
