There are many variations you can try with these techniques, here are a few:
You can use white ink for highlights and India ink for dark areas:
To make Indian ink washes on life drawings you will need:
A drawing on white paper
India Ink
A few brushes
clear gesso (I used Liquitex)
white ink
Start by mixing a medium tone of grey with the Indian ink.
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“Super black” means its blackness will be very permanent and fadeless. Contains 100% carbon black pigment. Also free-flowing, non-clogging, and waterproof.
Then apply the light Indian ink wash with big gestural strokes on the paper.
You can also add a few drips if you want to.
Let everything dry, you can use a hair dryer to speed up the process being careful not to make the drips move.
The drawing at this stage
When the ink is dry, you can apply a thin layer of clear gesso. The gesso looks milky when wet but will dry transparent. Let dry
Now you can work on the new gessoed surface and go over some of the shading with India Ink.
I am a Blick Art Materials affiliate and I receive a small compensation for sales. That does not effect in any way the cost of the purchaser’s order but it helps me keeping the content of this blog free.
This Clear Gesso makes an excellent high-tooth, stable surface for most media. It dries clear to translucent, depending on thickness. Flexible and non-yellowing when dry. Mix Liquitex Clear Gesso with acrylic paint to create a colored gesso.
You can go over the same area a few times to make it darker.
Originally from France, I have been living in North Vancouver, Canada for the past 20 years.
My work has been collected and exhibited extensively in Canada and internationally. I am also part of the Art Rentals and sales program of the Vancouver Art Gallery.
Many of my paintings have been published in Art books and magazines (Artist Magazine, Watercolor Artist Magazine, Acrylic Magazine, International Artist Magazine). I wrote 2 art instruction books with North Light/F+W Books.
I have been writing for the last 5 years for my blog: paintingdemos.com, that has a mailing list of about 10 000 subscribers and about 20 000 visitors per month.
I am an active member in the community, as a co-founder of the North Shore Art crawl, a co-founder of a weekly life drawing group, a board member of the North Vancouver Arts Council, and have been invited as a juror for public art, art grants and juried exhibitions. You can read more about my collaborations here.
I had problems too so right clicked on the link and told it to open in another page, that worked fine. I have had similar problems on other websites for the last few weeks so its either an update to windows or an update to my browser.
Comments (4)
Caroline
I had problems too so right clicked on the link and told it to open in another page, that worked fine. I have had similar problems on other websites for the last few weeks so its either an update to windows or an update to my browser.
Sandrine Pelissier
Thanks Caroline, I am glad you could make it work 🙂
Diane
cannot get to ‘Painting over life drawings with India Ink- part 1’ no matter how i go. clicked on all paths and did search. help please.
Sandrine Pelissier
Thanks Diane for letting me know! There was a mistake in the link. I fixed it.
You can access the first part of the post here: https://paintingdemos.com/painting-over-life-drawings-with-india-ink/