The weather has been improving, and Little One is in a good mood again! She decided to wear another one of her pretty frocks and her string of pearls and go for a happy stroll with her tiny teddy bear. So let’s paint about it! I have a drawer full of Dr. Ph. Martin’s Bombay India Inks sitting in my drawer waiting to be used. Some time ago, I got so enthusiastic that I bought all three sets of various shades. I managed to try a few of them but never got around to seriously sketching with them with a proper nib and pen.
Pencil Sketch First
On my Strathmore Mixed Media sketchbook, I pencilled in my idea. It’s going to be a sunny day of course. Lots of cuteness! At this point, I decided to add some colour in the background to enhance the Spring mood. So how about outlining with India Ink and filling it in with watercolour? Then add some details later with the Ink.
Hydrus Water Colour Background
It must be a Dr. Ph. Martin’s day as I decide by chance to use Hydrus Watercolors also by that brand! I chose this actually because I like the rich pigmentation of the watercolours, even given that you need a few drops when diluting with water. Instead of the conventional method of mixing pigment with water in a dish, I just directly added the drops on paper and with a wet brush spread the colour around. As for the green grass, I merely mixed some yellow in the blue (from the sky)!
Colour Me Beautiful
I started with painting Little One’s face using Jane Davenport’s watercolour pans since she has a range of colours used for skin-tones. Then for the rest, I used a variety of water colours from various brands: Hydrus for the brown hair, purple dress and yellow sun, gold Gansai Tanbi paint for the sunrays and Kuretake watercolour pens for teddy. Then the next step was drawing the details with the Bombay India Inks! That as so much fun as I dipped the nibs in the pot. It took some getting used to but certainly brought back memories from school learning to handle a fountain pen! As you can see, I used these inks for the outlines and also for the details in Little One’s eyes and hair, the flowers on the ground and stripes and dots in the sun.
Putting on Some Bling
Although the piece could be finished, I felt it wasn’t yet complete. I then came up with an idea of “embellishing” the piece with some pearly white Nuvo Crystal Drops for Little One’s beads and Teddy’s eyes, followed by some pink glitter glue (Stickles by Rangers) in Cotton Candy. Check out the close up below. That seemed to work well, and I was now ready to go!
It’s good to go back to old art supplies I hadn’t used for some time. Especially at the start of discovering art, I collected and accumulated quite a lot of stuff since I got so excited with new things. Lately I’ve taken it a bit easier so now I can just return to what I already have and pick and choose for some variety. The Bombay India ink was so much fun to use, particularly with the challenge of a nib and pen. They are normally used for calligraphy but I think it’s also cool to do drawings with them too! I should like to do more work using that medium in future.
My Kawaii Quarter 