How to Create Textures in Pen & Ink With Watercolor

Drawing combining watercolor and pen and ink.

Pen and ink is an excellent medium for creating detailed texture. There are seven basic pen-and-ink texture techniques: crosshatching, stippling (dots), contour lines, wavy lines, crisscross lines, parallel lines and scribbles. Watercolor paint achieves texture in more subtle ways. The paint and effects change with the amount of water used and the wetness of the paper. Texture is also achieved by salting, brush strokes, splattering, blotting, scraping and stamping. Liquid frisket prevents paint in areas of the work, and alcohol and plastic wraps can distribute the pigments in unusual ways. Pen and ink and watercolor are often combined. Mixing mediums can increase texture and detail.

Things You'll Need

• Mechanical pencil
• White vinyl erasers
• Watercolor paper
• Rapidograph pen set
• Cartridges
• Inks
• Watercolor paint set
• Acrylic paint set
• Watercolor pencils
• Assorted art brushes
• Palettes
• Stylus
• Tweezers
• Razor
• Towels
• Plastic wrap

Instructions

1. Select a practice image that has a wide variety of texture types and color variations. Render this image in mechanical pencil at a fairly large scale. The image should take up 3/4 of an 8 1/2-by-11-inch sheet of paper.

2. Choose from a variety of watercolor papers or smooth surface bristol and vellum paper since these will give you a crisp surface for pen work. Place your original drawing on a light box. Place each sample paper over the original and trace the image onto your working paper.

3. Paint your image with watercolor. Vary the amount of brushes and water you use and try blotting, scraping, splattering and salt. Stipple by pouncing. Keep a note of your techniques on each sheet. Try pencils and liquid acrylics for more variations. Acrylics will harden as they dry providing better tooth for your pen.

4. Draw on your dry paintings with a rapidograph style cartridge-fed pen. Practice the same textures in different size pens. Contour lines will create an embossed, polished metal, flowing type of appearance. Crosshatching often looks more rough and hairy.

5. Practice parallel lines. They produce a more distant or hazy appearance. Crisscross lines are also hairy while stippling can make stones look porous. Use long wavy lines to depict grains and movement. Scribbles can be used for foliage.

6. Vary your ink colors by using reservoir pens to soften the contrast between your paint colors and pen colors. The more pen work you do on a piece, the darker the value of color will become. Varying the thickness of the line will also impact the degree of contrast that you create.

7. Make sample boards of your various techniques to give yourself a visual reference for how the texture pen and ink samples and watercolor texture techniques can be merged for enhancing the sensory impact of a painting.

Tips & Warnings

• By using the same image many times you can make direct comparisons to create good technique reference samples.

References

• Creating Textures in Pen & Ink with Watercolor; Claudia Nice; 2005