What is Line and Watercolour Wash Art?

1/16/2021

The empty swing. My pen and wash artwork to show the effect of Covid-19 on Australian playgrounds for most of this year. I'm happy that most stayed away from public gatherings and thus helped control the spread of the pandemic here. Do what's needed in your area to Stay Safe.

What is Line and Wash Art?

Line and Watercolor Wash [Australian Landscape] Rusty Rustic Oil Barrels. Line and wash drawing is also classed as painting. Its often named Pen and wash drawing. and it is one of the visual arts' mixed mediums. The paper is marked out by pen, pencil or paint lines, and then tinted with diluted ink or watercolour.

The technique has been known since the 13th-century when Chinese artists used transparent ink washes to create delicate atmospheric effects. The line-and-wash technique became familiar to European artists during the Renaissance in the early 15th century. Cennino Cennini taught pen drawing enhanced by brushwork.

Become a Patron!

The artwork completed, happy with it.
Thank you, Daryl Raine, for the use of the photo image as a reference for the artwork.

There are seven tutorial lessons created for rustic oil barrels in rural garden pen line and watercolour wash, at this stage of the artwork.

How would you like the art course made available?
Would you prefer the mini-courses presented for individual sale or as a monthly membership?

These are my work distracting neighbours.
Enjoying breakfast with my view and company.

17th century artists, Rembrandt, Claude Lorrain, Nicolas Poussin used the technique to create preparatory studies prior to creating more detailed paintings. Here they focused, as I strive to do, on the tonal values of the subject rather than a tight line rendering. Topographical drawings of the 18th century used line and wash technique. Line and wash is ideal for drawing buildings.

Line and wash became a common art form in the16th century, becoming exceedingly popular over the following century, as it is today. The

Line and wash lost favour with the impressionist and expressionist artists seeking spontaneity and the free expression of emotion, and impact of colour. I for instance was trained in the traditional tonal impressionist discipline where we painted without any prior drawing, focusing only on the tonal shapes, size and proportions.

On retirement from active gallery exhibition and art sales to pass on my know-how in art to others, I have renewed my early art years' interest in line-and-wash, plus drawing sing a wide range of art mediums including pens, ink and pencils.

I'm loving my ventures into wash drawing.

Restarting my Fountain Pen Collection

I succeeded in purchasing a Platinum 3776 Century Fountain Pen - Burgundy with 14K Gold EF nib.

Its a very good pen and it is in very nice pen to write with. It wasn't my first pick in new pens, I had my eye on a pen that retailed around $400. but couldn't justify the cost for myself at this stage.

These Platinum 3776 nibs are stiff and I assume they can take some abuse by artists as long as you are not exerting too much pressure. It is a good entry level pen to using a gold nib pen.

Squeeze Converters for Fountain Pens

I purchased a squeeze converter for each of these pens, so that I can easily fill up my pen with the permanent ink. I don't like the trow away ink cartridges. they are wasteful if you use a lot of ink, as I do.

To fill, unscrew the body of the fountain pen.
Place the nib underwater in the ink.
Squeeze the converter to fill the pen.
Tissue off excess ink from the nib.
Reassemble the pen and start sketching!

Every Platinum #3776 Century Fountain Pen comes with a User's Manual and a Platinum Cartridge.

Platinum is one of the biggest fountain pen producer in Japan. The founder named the brand "Platinum" to show his dream of producing the best stationery to customers. #3776 series is the most famous series among all Platinum fountain pen products. 3776 is the height of the Fuji Mountain, which shows the confidence of Platinum on this series.

3776 Century has an outstanding cost-performance ratio. With the similar price, it is hard to find a golden nib fountain pen with a similar quality. The golden nib is 14K with 3776 label on it. The breather hole shows a heart shape.

3776 Century is their latest product. It took Platinum 5 years to redesign the old #3776. #3776 us the latest technique on the pen cap to prevent the dry out of the nib.

Experiment shows that the ink won't dry out in #3776 century after two years, while regular fountain pen would not be able to write directly after 3-6 months.

PILOT Desk Fountain Pen - Red

Because I am returning to fountain pen use after years of using a dip pen or a throw away pen, I chose an entry-level cost Pilot fountain pen to experiment with, rather than risk the more costly Platinum fountain pen during my first pen strokes.
The PILOT Desk Fountain Pen an elongated handle I should enjoy using for creating artwork as it balances in the hand well.

This is also an extra fine nib size.
I now need a medium nib size fountain pen.

Permanent Fountain Pen Inks suited for Use under a Watercolour Wash

Platinum Carbon Ink - Black

DE ATRAMENTIS Archive Ink

DE ATRAMENTIS Archive Ink

A black, waterproof and permanent fountain pen ink that I found highly recommended, both by artists and fountain pen enthusiasts for writing and sketching.

This handmade ink is pigmented and has excellent flow in the Desk Pen. This flow makes it especially good for pens that dave feed issues.

I selected it because the ink is archival quality, it will not fade, and I can sketch with it prior to adding the watercolour wash over the top and the sketched ink lines will not bleed into the wash.

I have ruined fountain pens in the past by using the wrong ink and in not cleaning the pens after use. I now intend to keep my pens infrequent use, or if I stop working with them for more than a day or two I plan to empty and rinse the pen out until the water flows clear, before storing the pen.

Good tools deserve great care.

I do not usually use metallic paint in fine art

When people copy an artist, they don't learn why they do something, and they learn both the artist's good and bad habits. You need to learn the why art mediums are used in a certain way.

I would not recommend using metallic paint in fine art without a study of how best to use them, which isn't covered in this lesson. I used very little of those paints for this artwork, and did it as a teaching exercise for the mini-course, above, of seven real-time lessens — where I explained that was an experiment to show why I do not use metallic paint when painting metal.

Metallic paints are fun for crafters.

Metallic paints are fun for crafters. They were okay as I used them.

I created a cut out, extra-short video section from the tutorial videos and posted it here:
Happy Creativity, Cheers, Ryn.

Practice. No One is Born Talented.

Traditional art training is the best way to achieve the effects of metal with paint.

It is this light and shade training, and not special effect paint that makes something appear to represent metal.

Many forget, or don't realise, that Van Gogh did quite a lot of formal, traditional art practice, as guided by his brother who sent him plaster casts of human figures, heads, hands, to practice painting and thus train his eye for painting light and shade and to correctly seeing shapes.
Van Gogh and I have that training in common. I would have trained using the same traditional plaster models he used in his training.
I work safer than Van Gogh did. No lead based paints in my studio, and I don't paint at the kitchen table as he did.

New art prints for sale! - "Five Rustic Barrels"

1 Comment