Drawing Your Hand with Pen, Ink, & Wash

Wash or washing means to brush with a thin coat of diluted ink or paint.

Paper Mate Flair - Felt Tip
Pentel EnerGel - Metal Tip
Pilot Gel Rolling Ball - Fine Point

These three pens each work well for ink and wash drawing. They are great for making lots of drawings and exploring ink and wash. These pens are NOT permanent markers -- the ink from them can be "washed" over with water from a brush, a sponge or dripped on and the ink will run and become (with the water) a WASH. The ink comes up from the paper when it water rehydrates the ink. You can combine this method with additional washes of other ink that you have diluted with water. You can also use watercolor thinned out with lots of water to make a transparent wash that will carry some color.

Experiment first with scribbles and doodles and then brush over those with water. Play and find out what you can do. Each pen makes grays of different colors. You can see the differences! The Flair felt tip pen is more of a red violet. The Pentel metal tip is more of a blue with tones that lean towards yellow, a bit of violet and thus slight greens at times. The Pilot rolling ball goes a bit more to the red AND it makes more dots or clumps of ink that show more when they bleed out -- standing out from the lines. You may choose one over another. They can also all be used together. Flair also makes the felt tip in a variety of colors. See what you can find and play around with them all to see what you like!

Here you see the three brushes that I used to brush the clear water on to the paper and into the ink. I could have just used any ONE of these brushes. The important part is that the brush be of sufficient quality so that it has SPRING to the brush. Wet or dry -- when you push on the end of the bristles -- the brush should have a slightly stiff springy feel to it. The very cheap brushes just bend or collapse and you can't apply pressure to the paper or the ink. Limp brushes make it next to impossible to move and direct the water. Very frustrating! And you might conclude (possibly AGAIN!) that you are not very good at this. WRONG! You need a brush that you can push and pull. Also, when wet, these brushes will hold their points (the round ones) or their edge (the flat one). Usually the brushes that come with an inexpensive water color set are of little or no use. Get a synthetic, nylon or sablette brush that is not too expensive. It should cost around $10 or less. Get a fairly large one so that it will do more for you and so it will hold more water. The numbers #6 and #10 here refer to their size and are good brush choices.