Experiments with ink

I was browsing through books at Art Supply Warehouse and ran across Everyday Sketching & Drawing by Steven B. Reddy.

The art was really appealing I already owned most of the supplies* so I tried Reddy's process out using reference from Line of Action. I lightly sketched in big shapes with pencil, drew in lines using a Uniball Vision pen (it's waterproof!), painted in values using Speedball Super Black ink (it's waterproof when dry!), glazed watercolors on top of that, and then used a little bit of white gouache to pop in some light. This was a fun study! I also really like the recommendation of the Uniball pens. They aren't too expensive and the ink flows well on rough paper.

*I have enough art supplies at home to open my own art store. Seriously...you should see my pen collection, I got a gabillion of them stored in various mugs and Talenti gelato cups.

Bonus pic! This is also from Line of Action. I didn't want to add color on top of these values. One of the drawbacks of layering on top of black is that bright colors would get muddy with this method. It works for the donkey above because there was a lot of gray in the reference. Not so much with the green grass this kitty is lounging on top of.